


fine dining

by levlinwinlaer



Category: Portrait de la jeune fille en feu | Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)
Genre: F/F, did someone say enemies to lovers???, head chef marianne, post-portrait therapy, self-indulgent chef au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:21:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 36,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23159206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/levlinwinlaer/pseuds/levlinwinlaer
Summary: Three months after the grand opening of Portrait, socialite and food critic Héloïse Nicollier pays a visit.
Relationships: Héloïse/Marianne (Portrait of a Lady on Fire)
Comments: 640
Kudos: 903





	1. marianne's schedule/l'aperitif

Thursday!

5.00. To the seafood market, for the best selection of fish of the day. Buy cured meats, and roast hazelnuts for gelato. Begin to write up today’s lunch menu.

6.30. Open kitchens of _Portrait_. Receive shipment of caviar. Milk, cream, sugar, stabilizer in pasteuriser.

6.50. Separate the pasteurised mix into those nice Italian buckets and flavour each. Inevitably run out of pistachios because Camille eats them when stressed.

7.00. Harvest from garden. Tend to the plants in the rooftop greenhouse.

8.00. Buy whatever other vegetables are needed from morning farmer’s market.

9.00. La fromagerie! Goat cheese, whatever else piques the interest.

9.30. Return to kitchens promptly to avoid spending too much on cheese. Begin preparing sandwich loaves for lunchtime.

10.00. Staff arrives. Put up with Antoine bitching about the cucumbers. Bake the little cakes; cut to 15 and 10 cm.

10.15. Fix napkins; check seating area to make sure all is well.

10.30. Prepare hors d’oeuvres. Maybe the little sandwiches again. Check on marinated salmon from last night.

11.00. Lunch begins.

14.00. Lunch ends. Close doors. Let everyone leave again & forbid naps in kitchen area. Start churning each gelato flavour. Freeze each when done. DO NOT LEAVE IN CHURN PAST 8 MINUTES.

16.00. Dinner prep begins.

17.00. Set up every little thing to maximize precision. Agonise over putting cannoli in with the dessert courses. Take it off again.

17.10. Servers arrive. Prep with maitre d’.

17.45. Service begins. Hell descends.

19.00. First portrait creations begin.

22.00. Service ends. Give staff remaining gelato & food. Clean kitchens. Go home. Consider quitting but don’t. Do it all again tomorrow.

“Marianne?”

 _Christ, what?_ Marianne didn’t look up from the strawberries. Perfect two-centimetre increments, slice after slice. Absolute precision. “What now?”

“Er,” Sophie said. “Nicollier’s here.”

Marianne very nearly cut her hand open with the jolt of surprise. She dropped the knife with a loud clatter and looked up at Sophie, who was about as pale as someone facing down the firing squad. “Nicollier? She didn’t make a reservation?”

“She never makes reservations,” Sophie pointed out, which _wasn’t helpful_.

“Fucking God,” Marianne said fervently, and grabbed the cloth hanging over her shoulder so she could wipe her hands. “We’re still fully booked?”

Sophie nodded.

“No space for another table?”

“Next to the fireplace?”

“No, she’d eat us alive.”

Sophie thought for a moment. “Kick someone out?”

“Even worse than the fireplace.” Marianne stared, briefly, at the tiny charcoal grills she’d procured from Tokyo at great expense, and contemplated resting her face on one of them. “Well, if we can’t put her anywhere- hm.“

“You can’t possibly be kicking out Nicollier,” Sophie said, horrified.

“It’s my restaurant,” Marianne said, and, before anyone could stop her, headed for the door to the seating area.

Sure enough, she was there, staring into the fireplace with her arms crossed and head tilted to the side, tendrils of firelight-gold hair framing her face. As Marianne approached, she turned, and gave her the sort of look that was usually reserved for the detectives in erotic novels. Or something. Very intense. As if she was picking apart every part of Marianne, and putting it together in a way that was satisfactory to her.

“Marianne Desgarnier,” she said, and held out a hand to shake.

“I know,” Nicollier said, still watching her, and took it. Marianne almost scoffed. _What a way to introduce yourself._ Nicollier didn’t say another word, just kept _looking_ at her. It was putting Marianne awfully on edge.

“Welcome to _Portrait_ ,” she said, to break the silence. “We really are pleased to have you here, but unfortunately the restaurant’s full at the moment, and the wait will be about thirty minutes.”

Finally a reaction. Nicollier’s eyebrows rose, ever so slightly. “You can’t seat me?”

Something about the way she said it- “me?”, as if she were the queen herself and not just some food critic (okay, maybe a high-profile food critic, and the closest thing to royalty there was in the Michelin club, but call a slug a slug) made Marianne’s teeth close with an almost-audible clack.

“I’m afraid not,” Marianne said, and if she could have mustered a sickly sweet tone she would have put it on. “Try making a reservation?”

Nicollier looked at her for a long moment. Marianne started to feel the tinges of fear, and then- Nicollier inclined her head, barely, and walked out of the restaurant, her skirts swirling in the breeze like the designer dress of a makeshift cartoon villain.

Sophie came up behind her. “What was that? She didn’t say anything?”

Marianne felt the sudden urge to throw up. She was already picturing the headlines - ‘What Héloïse Nicollier’s Scathing Review of _Portrait_ Means For Future Chefs’. ’Head Chef & Owner at _Portrait_ Thrown Out Over Nicollier Scandal’. ‘What A Critic Can Do: _Portrait_ Faces Closures After Nicollier Review’-

“Marianne!”

“Hm?”

“Stop thinking about it. It’s done already.”

Marianne let out a long breath, and went back to the kitchen, ignoring the curious stare of the guests along the way.

The day passed. Marianne spent an hour that night anxiously checking the news for any trace of Nicollier, any review that might ruin her forever.

Nothing. Radio silence.

The next day, Marianne swept into the kitchens at 6.30 sharp, and busied herself with checking the caviar delivery. Camille, the entremetier, arrived at 7.30, and greeted Marianne with a yawn.

“Potatoes?”

“No. Parsnips and carrots today. Potatoes will be Friday, maybe?”

“Hate parsnips,” Camille said, and went to go find the peeler. “So bitter, so sour. No richness. Tastes like potatoes gone bad. Caramelised?”

Marianne considered it. “Hm. Antoine wants to do chicken for lunch today, I think with brown sugar.”

“So roast, then.”

“Roast is good. Do we have those little sprouts?”

“I’ll get them in the market.”

“From that nice farmer, the one with the kids.”

Marianne hummed an affirmation and left to face the bustle of the market.

The lunch rush started around 12 o’clock, and lasted for an hour. It went over well, even though Antoine misplaced the brown sugar halfway through and declared Mathilde totally incompetent. Mathilde, the restaurant’s saucier and Marianne's favourite chef, had the patience of a saint. She came up with some molasses-and-plantain-crusted chicken, which was ridiculously unsexy but tasted like orgasm. Still no sign of Nicollier. Marianne began to relax. There was no time to think of spoiled food critics, anyway.

Dinner call came at 16.00, and with it, more disaster than even Marianne could have predicted at her most cynical. Camille lost the peeler (again). Antoine overcooked the quails that Mathilde was supposed to be testing her sauces on. The oysters hadn’t yet been delivered, which meant that the poissonier, an American named David who complained when they pronounced it with French vowels, was sitting on his ass blocking everyone else from doing their jobs. And, of course, there was the ever-present issue of Marianne forgetting to design a proper vegetarian menu.

“We could glaze the parsnips in honey and throw them on the charcoal grills,” Mathilde said. “Similar texture.”

“Or we could just throw tempeh in and call it a day like you’d do,” Antoine chimed in. Marianne wanted to fire him like nothing else in the world. It was a pity he was the best in the industry.

“Shut up, Antoine,” Marianne said, “or we’ll do the moray eels again.”

Antoine blanched, and scurried off. He hated preparing eel- David was supposed to do the seafood, but Marianne had no scruples and thus delegated all eels to Antoine as payback for being the worst. Marianne didn’t blame him for hating them, though. They were so slimy. Which reminded her-

“No sign of Nicollier?”

Sophie shook her head from where she was leaning against the expediting counter, iPad in hand. “No. I have a Google Alert.”

Marianne whistled a few notes. “Okay. Have the oysters come in?”

“Yes, just now. They’re bringing in the crates.”

“Good.”

Dinner service began at 17.45, and with it, hell descended. Marianne was almost glad when 19.00 rolled around and she could retreat into the seclusion of her freezer.

Now these were Marianne’s masterpieces. The final course of twelve, the culmination of nearly two hours of eating and countless days of work- the eponymous portrait. Marianne churned the gelato herself and made each one by hand. Meticulous.

The premise was simple enough- some variation of cake, usually a Madagascar vanilla, or marzipan, or when Marianne was feeling festive, a buttered rum cake. Then atop it, the portrait. Marianne greeted every guest, memorised the peculiar angles of their faces, and laid it all down in coloured gelato. It had to be served immediately, of course, so for the couples’ tables she made them simultaneously. Marianne could not be disturbed while she was painting- each shadow was too delicate, each shade pristine and unique. She worked in the little backroom she had converted into a walk-in freezer, and rang the bell when each portrait was done. After the eleven courses were done for the 5.45 round of guests, which would take exactly one hour and fifteen minutes if everything went according to plan (and it always went according to plan), she retreated into the backroom and began.

The first portrait was a man, perhaps in his 60s, balding. Marianne smoothed down a base of peach gelato on the slab of cake, and set to work.

Halfway through one portrait, there was a soft knock at the door. Marianne looked up, irritated.

“Next round of guests starts at 19.45,” she called.

The door swung open anyway, and Sophie hurried inside, clutching her iPad.

“Nicollier's here,” she said, and Marianne’s worst nightmare started right back up again.


	2. entrée one

“She made a reservation?”

“Under ‘H.N.’,” Sophie said, flipping around the screen to show her. “And she never makes reservations. _And_ she’s early.”

“By seven minutes,” Marianne noted, feeling a headache creeping up. “I’ll finish this one, then I’ll go. Christ. Give her some wine, or something, I don’t care. Did I fire the sommelier?”

Sophie nodded. “Two weeks ago, for-“ her ears went red- “dirtying the wine cellar.”

“Ah, yes.” Marianne snapped her fingers briskly. “Two minutes. The 1998 Merlot. I’ll greet her.”

Sophie saluted, and ducked out again. Marianne smeared the framboise gelato in a careful approximation of a rising starlet’s pout. She did the mouth last, usually. Along with the eyes, it was the easiest to get wrong. But the film stars were easy to please; they were impressed by anything as long as it looked like them.

Marianne wiped her hands off and picked up the two portraits. She wasn’t nervous, exactly- there were plenty of critics, and Portrait had yet to field a bad review in its first three months. But even so. This was Nicollier. This was different.

She set down the portraits in front of the beaming couple, and endured their gushing for as long as she was able- one minute and fifteen seconds, no longer- before politely excusing herself.

Sophie fell in line with her as she made her way through the tables, offering distracted smiles to the guests.

“The Cannes types are getting worse by the day,” Marianne said through her teeth.

“Yes, I know.”

“So bubbly, so irritating. Honestly, I don’t know how they could possibly-“

“Marianne.”

“What?”

“Don’t be nervous. Look, there she is.”

Marianne turned, and saw Nicollier, standing (again) by the fireplace,inspecting her glass of wine. Today it was a blue dress, its delicate blue ruffles draped dangerously close to the crackling fire. Marianne wondered- perhaps if she just approached quickly enough, caught Nicollier off guard-

“Don’t push her into the fire,” Sophie whispered warningly. “Nicollier, remember?”

“I remember,” Marianne said grudgingly. “Come on. How would I forget?”

Nicollier looked up and met Marianne’s gaze. Her expression didn’t change. Perhaps that was her resting face- bullishness mixed with pretentious thoughtfulness. Well, it was too late now to turn around. Marianne approached her with caution, and held out a hand.

“Marianne Desgarnier,” Nicollier said, and shook her hand. So they were going to have this interaction again. Marianne plastered a smile firmly on her face. _Nicollier Nicollier Lemonde Michelin club Nicollier New York Times Nicollier be professional_ -

“Nicollier,” she said. They were still shaking hands. It had been, frankly, an absurd amount of time since they began shaking hands. Marianne couldn’t even remember when they had started. She dropped Nicollier’s hand as politely as she could manage.

“We’re very pleased to welcome you to Portrait,” she said mechanically. “Please follow me to your table.”

Nicollier inclined her head, and followed Marianne to a little table in a secluded nook of the restaurant.

“Thank you,” she said, and sat, sweeping her skirts across her lap. One of the ruffles brushed Marianne’s ankle. This annoyed her unimaginably.

“Today’s twelve-course tasting menu will be served by Sophie,” Marianne said, and Sophie materialised by her side. “She is one of the best, and she will be explaining all the courses as they come.”

“And the vegetarian menu, if you would prefer that,” Sophie piped up. Her smile looked a lot more natural than Marianne’s. Oh well.

“I’ll leave you to your meal, then,” Marianne said, and prepared to make a graceful exit.

“Oh, you’re not serving me?”

“What?”

Nicollier was looking up at her, brows raised. “You don’t bring the dishes out?”

“No,” Marianne said. Perhaps it was a little too sharp, because Sophie cut in to rescue her diplomatically.

“As the head chef, Marianne usually stays in the kitchen til the final course is served.”

“Okay,” Nicollier said, and leaned back in her chair. Marianne bit the inside of her cheek instead of kicking Nicollier’s chair over, which was probably the best she could do in that context.

“Enjoy your meal,” she said, and departed for the kitchen.

“Antoine!”

“What, Marianne, jesus-“

“Where are the quails, man, Christ-“

“Who let you in the fucking main kitchen, it’s past 7, shouldn’t you be in the freezer-“

“Nicollier’s here!”

That shut him up.

“The real Nicollier?”

“No, the puppet one. Yes, the real Nicollier! Now quails!”

Antoine managed to contain himself to four curses, which was impressive decorum. Sophie barged into the kitchen and conferred with Camille for a quick moment before turning to Marianne.

“Yes, Sophie, what's the bad news,” Marianne sighed.

“Nicollier wants the dairy-free menu.”

“Oh, she wants to make my life hell? Is that what she wants?”

“Yes, Marianne.”

“I can do dairy-free,” Mathilde volunteered, bless her soul. “We can try coconut oil instead of butter.”

“Yes, and have it be shit,” Antoine said.

“Don’t say that to Mathilde,” Marianne snapped.

“I’ll do a citrus-based sauce instead for the quails,” Mathilde offered. “And a glaze for the parsnips, no butter baste.”

“You’re perfect, Mathilde, I’m going to marry you,” Marianne said. “Hold down the fort, I’m going to finish the portraits for this round. Next round’s coming in-”

“Two minutes,” Sophie said.

“Okay. We’ll be fine.”

Sophie came back into the kitchens around the third course, as Marianne finished the last of the first round’s portraits. Marianne took one look at her and groaned in disbelief.

“What now?” she asked.

“Nicollier wants a vegetarian version of the Wagyu.”

“She wants _what_?”

“Vegetarian Wagyu,” Antoine said slowly, then louder, “Vegetarian Wagyu?”

“Okay, we’ll do it,” Camille said, much too cheerfully for someone facing down culinary death row. “I’ll grill a portobello or something.”

“That’s fine. What about the chocolate steak sauce?”

“I think it’ll work with a portobello,” Mathilde said. “Just throw it in a pan and use the mushroom juices with the cacao.”

"Don't blame me when it's awful, Mathilde."

"Antoine!"

Sixth course rolled around, and Sophie popped back in the kitchens.

“Don’t say it,” Marianne warned.

Sophie made an apologetic face. “She says she doesn’t eat parsnips.”

Marianne withheld any retort she could have come up with. Antoine let out an incredulous whistle from where he was painting the quails.

“You’re kidding,” Camille said.

“All carrots, then,” Marianne said wearily. “And cut the parsnip cake. I’ll do a cornbread or something.”

Ninth course, and Sophie came back in.

“Not now.”

“Nicollier doesn’t want tuna.”

“Is she serious?”

“Dead serious. Any other fish will do.”

“We still have the trout from yesterday,” David said in his halting French.

“Okay, sear that,” Marianne said briskly, in English. There was no time to waste with translation. “Do the sweet onion plating from today’s tuna, that is very nice. Sophie?”

“Mm?”

“Don’t come back in here again.”

Tenth course:

“She says no prickly pear.”

“I say I'm going to spit in her fruit. Camille, do we still have the feijoa from two days ago?”

“Sure, two or three.”

“Okay.” A sickly sweet smile. “Tell her if she doesn’t like the feijoa with the finger limes then she can go fuck herself.”

“Yes, Marianne.”

Marianne retreated into her freezer, popped the lids off the dairy-free sorbets, and smeared a base layer of vanilla over the sheep’s-milk cake base with perhaps undue ferocity. She was really going to have to resist smashing the whole portrait into Nicollier’s smug, overblown face.

No. Marianne was a professional. There were only two courses left, and by God Marianne was going to get through this.

A blueberry cardamom sorbet for the background. A ginger-cream sorbet for the shadows above her eyes and below her nose. A dab right above the curve of her chin, and a streak just below her hairline. Two light pink hibiscus smears along her cheeks. A light dulce de leche for her hair. Dark chocolate coffee along her eyebrows and the delicate brush of her eyelashes, the little ovals where the nostrils would be, and the crescent where the lips would part ever so slightly. Three different shades of the ginger-cream to accentuate the straight line of her nose. A pandan & coconut flavour for the iris of the eye, painted on with a tiny icing spatula. And finally, the mouth. Marianne traced the framboise over the Cupid’s bow arc of her upper lip, then the sulky line of her bottom lip, and filled it in.

She stood up to inspect her work. Portrait-Nicollier was introspective, neutral, thoughtful, nothing like the real item. Perfect. Marianne picked it up, kicked the door of the freezer open, and marched on through.

Nicollier was sitting, leaned back and relaxed, in her chair, nothing but a single golden spoon on the pristine tablecloth in front of her. She looked up as Marianne set the portrait in front of her, and kept her eyes on Marianne for an excruciatingly long period of time.

“Your portrait,” Marianne said.

Nicollier looked at it, finally. No reaction. Just a slight tilt of her head, barely a furrow of the eyebrows.

“Is that how you see me?” she asked.

Was it? No. Not at all. But Marianne could hardly deliver a portrait that had ‘cunt’ written across it in flamboyant orange.

“I didn’t realise you were an art critic,” Marianne snapped, before she could rein her tongue in. Nicollier nodded, perhaps to herself. She didn’t look hurt, exactly. Just amused. Maybe? Marianne couldn’t read her at all, and it was infuriating.

Nicollier picked up her spoon and dipped it carefully into the middle of the portrait, just above the mouth. She took a bite. The spoon came out clean.

“I hope you enjoyed your dining experience today,” Marianne said. Monotone. That was safe.

Nicollier looked up at Marianne, and gave her a quirk of the mouth. “I did.”

“Good.” Marianne turned on her heel and walked back into the kitchen.

“How’d she take it?” Camille asked, from where she was finishing one of the prickly pear dishes.

“I don’t care about Nicollier’s fucking review anymore,” Marianne bit out, and withdrew into her freezer. She’d face the looming spectre of a disastrous Nicollier review in the morning. For now, there were portraits to make.


	3. entrée two

“You should worry less,” Camille said.

Marianne looked up from her neat sorting of the leftover quail bones. “What?”

“She means you’re a hardass,” Antoine said, and tossed a kumquat into his mouth.

“Those are expensive,” Marianne snapped, and took the container of kumquats away.

“See, that’s exactly what I’m saying. Hardass.”

“Shut up, Antoine,” Camille said. “No, I mean about the restaurant. We have the best food this side of the Seine, you think some hoity-toity lady in a fancy dress will be the one to change that?”

Marianne sighed, dropped her head down to rest on the plastic container of thigh bones. “I know,” she said into the marble countertop. “Thanks.”

“Okay, Marianne, that’s as nice as I’ll be to you after today’s service. Devil bitch. _Allons-y_ , Day-vid.” She picked up her car keys from the hook by the kitchen door and waved over her shoulder. David hastily hung up his apron and followed.

“Not like that,” he said, his voice fading as they disappeared down the hallway, “it’s _David_ , I really don’t think it’s that hard to pronounce, maybe if you tried-“

The door closed behind them, and Marianne was at peace. She stacked her quail bones away in the fridge; she could turn them into a soup, maybe? A nice base for some broth, or something, she’d figure it out tomorrow. Everything else had been put away. She surveyed the empty kitchen, with its shining stainless steel and white marble counters, and let out a long breath. Even Nicollier couldn’t ruin this kitchen for her.

Antoine poked his head out of the walk-in freezer. “Duck breast tomorrow?”

Marianne nodded. “Yes. _On y va?_ It’s later than usual, I’m sorry.”

“ _Pas de problème_. I’m used to getting no sleep.” He hung up his apron and yawned. “Okay, I’ll go get the bikes.”

Antoine ambled off down the hallway. Marianne looked around the kitchen one last time, breathed in the cool fresh silence, and turned off the lights.

The next morning the abalone shipment came in late at 9.30. David arrived in the nick of time to be saved from Marianne’s wrath; he took one look at her and immediately reached for the Arctic char, keeping his head down.

“Nine thirty!” Marianne spat, furious. “Come on, man, nine thirty? I ordered it for six thirty! You’re three hours late, what _is_ that?”

“Sorry, madam,” the delivery man mumbled.

“Don’t be sorry, just don’t be late ever again.” She dismissed him with a wave and turned to the bustling kitchen. “Okay, everybody, listen up! No abalone on the lunch anymore, replace it with scallop or something, try for a similar texture so it still works in the menu. If you can come up with something brilliant before 10.30, I’ll marry you.” She clapped twice, and the bustle resumed.

Predictably, it was Mathilde who set a plate down in front of Marianne at 10.17 on the dot - a foamy green sauce draped delicately over a seared scallop, ringed by neat slices of blood orange- and gave her a spoon. Marianne took a bite, and heard the angels sing.

“Mathilde, I could kiss you,” she said. “Yes, perfect. The sauce is seaweed and cream?”

“Sea herbs, too. It’s very simple.”

“It’s lovely. A touch more salt on the scallop, maybe some lemon zest, and- hm. What are you using now, kombu?”

“Yes.”

“Good, keep that, and add alaria, too. I think it’ll be nice. Tell David to prep the rest of the scallops, this is wonderful.”

Sophie poked her head into the kitchen. “Forty to service. Staff is here and ready.”

“Okay, good,” Marianne said, and wiped her hands off on the towel over her shoulder before ducking around Sophie and into the dining room. The staff was awaiting her, perfectly pressed and coiffed, not a hair out of place. Marianne wondered how they did it sometimes.

“Hi, everyone,” she said cheerfully, and waited until they all had their little books out. “Sunday lunch service, busy day today. First course is a bruschetta, with raspberry and orange. Then a seared scallop with a seaweed cream sauce and blood orange. Main is either a salt-baked turbot on wild rice or a smoked chicken breast with a gooseberry sauce and celeriac. For dessert, either a raspberry custard tart or a classic crêpe suzette, finished with the flambé. Good?”

“Bien,” they chorused.

Two claps, and Marianne marched back into the kitchen just in time to catch the end of a whispered conversation between Sophie and Antoine. Sophie caught her eye and stopped talking immediately, which was deeply suspicious.

“Antoine,” Marianne said warningly.

“Marianne,” Antoine said in the exact same tone. Marianne was really going to strangle him eventually.

“What’s happened?”

“I was asking about the sommelier,” Antoine said. “I didn’t hear what happened and I thought it was very rude of you not to share.”

“Not relevant,” Marianne barked, before he could say more. “Sophie is our stand-in sommelier, and that’s all you need to know.”

Antoine scoffed. “Come on, as if. I already hear about nothing but the sex lives of my coworkers, and you’re not even going to tell me about the best one?”

“Thirty minutes till service,” Marianne said pointedly. Antoine rolled his eyes and went back to carving his chicken.

Lunch went fine, as it always did, and Camille was already tucking herself in on the little cot by the time Marianne closed the kitchen. She was sound asleep before anyone had even taken their aprons off.

“You’re blocking the hallway,” David complained, through a mouthful of tart. Camille let out a loud snore in response.

“Just roll her over to the side,” Marianne said. Antoine, who never missed a chance to torture his fellow chefs, perked up.

“Here, let me help,” he said, and before Marianne could do anything he pushed the cot all the way down the hallway and out the door.

“Antoine!” Marianne shouted. “Don’t do anything stupid, I need an entremetier for the dinner course!”

“It’s fucking vegetables,” Antoine shouted back. “I could do it, how hard can it be to cook vegetables?”

“Okay, fine, you do the vegetables for tonight’s service, and Camille can do all the meats, hm? You want that?”

“No, I’m just saying-”

“Marianne?” This from Sophie, leaning in from the dining room.

“Yes?”

She chewed on her words for a moment, long enough that Marianne got worried and started to smile reassuringly, and then she said, “Another H.N. reservation just got booked.”

The smile fell off Marianne’s face.

“I can’t be sure it’s her, but-“

Marianne was already reaching for the iPad. All it said was ‘H.N.’. Under ’special requests’ she had written ‘a better portrait’. Marianne looked skyward and prayed for mercy, or at least the moral strength required to not hit her over the head with an icing spatula.

“When is it for?”

“Tomorrow.”

“How the hell did she do that? We’re booked three weeks in advance.”

“Same as last time. One other diner drops out and she books it right after.”

Thus followed a long period of silence, broken only by the soft rhythmic thuds of skull against marble.

“Marianne? Don’t do that, it’s bad for you. Come on. You’re worrying Mathilde.”

At this Marianne stopped.

“Okay,” she said, heaving herself upright. “Tomorrow will be the best meal she has all year.”

“Damn right,” David said encouragingly. “It’s okay. She’s a pretty girl, right? We’ve all been there.”

And because Marianne lived in some tenth circle of hell, Antoine and Camille entered just on the tail end of David’s words. Marianne saw a light flicker into their eyes and braced herself for misery.

“Ooh, Marianne,” Camille sang, flinging her arms out. She was still in her chef’s coat, and her hair was sticking up on one side. She looked ridiculous. “A pretty girl?”

“Ooh la la!” Antoine cried, and grabbed Camille to dance her around the kitchen in a bare approximation of a waltz. “Marianne has a woman!”

“Not _my_ woman,” Marianne said through gritted teeth. “Nicollier made another reservation.”

“Nicollier?” Camille shrieked, dropping Antoine from where she was dipping him. He fell with a thud that would have been satisfying under any other circumstance.

“That’s the same one that was here yesterday, right?” David asked. “Yeah, she was kind of bitchy, but I don’t know why you guys are so scared. Some women are just like that.”

Slowly it sunk in.

“Wait,” Marianne said, in English. “David.”

“Yes?”

“Do you know who this Nicollier is?”

“Well,” he said slowly, glancing around at the astonished faces, “I thought I did, but not anymore. Is she a big deal in Par-is?”

“Not Par-is, _Paris_ ,” Camille said, at the same time that Antoine jabbered in French too quick for David to understand, “Unbelievable, Marianne, this is why you can’t hire Americans.”

“Nicollier,” Marianne said, “is one of the most, eh- célèbre, what is the word-“

“Famous,” Mathilde offered.

“Famous, yes, the most famous critics in France.”

“She is very popular,” Camille cut in. “She was in a big movie about a food critic, and people thought she was, you know, trop belle, très whatever. So they all wanted a movie about her. But she is very private, solitaire. So nobody knows anything except for her writing.”

“And also she is very rich, lives in the septième,” Antoine added. At Marianne’s judgmental look, he held up his hands. “Come on, Marianne, I was bored, and she is interesting.”

“Anyways,” Camille continued, “she writes these reviews, yes, for the New York Times, and also for Lemonde and The Art Of Eating, and she writes for Gastronomica. And look, in that big movie they call her the ‘Michelin lady’, you know why?”

“Because she’s a Michelin critic?”

“No, listen. Every review she says, you know, this restaurant is worth one, two, three stars, or zero. And every time the Michelin guide comes out? _Oui_. Look at the Nicollier review, look at the guide. She is right every time.”

“I don’t believe that,” David said. With a miserable groan Marianne sank back onto the counter.

“Well, the people do,” Camille said offhandedly. “You see the Nicollier review, you say, oh, it says two stars, three stars, you book a table. At least if no one else has read it yet.”

“And she’s coming again tomorrow?”

“Yes,” Marianne said grimly. “Tomorrow.”

“Today first,” Sophie said, patting Marianne on the shoulder. “Come on. It’s almost three o’clock.”

Marianne roused herself from apocalyptic images of Nicollier’s horrible face. “Yes, three o’clock.” She clapped, loud enough to wake Camille, whose eyes had started to droop again. “Okay, everybody! All hands on deck for the abalone at 16.00. That’s four o’clock, David, for the Americans.”

“I understand military time,” David said resignedly, and disappeared into the freezer.

“Ah, Americans. Wake me up when I have to work,” Camille said, and went off in search of the cot.

Marianne sighed. Another day, another little piece of hell.


	4. fish course

Nicollier was early. Again.

When Marianne stalked into the dining room she found her talking to one of the guests, a young girl who had booked a table with her mother for her birthday dinner. The girl giggled as Nicollier gestured animatedly- telling a story, perhaps. She made a ridiculous face, cheeks puffed out, clearly a look of disgust. Marianne snorted despite herself.

“Nicollier,” she said sharply, banishing any amusement from her voice. The girl jumped in her seat with a squeak, but Nicollier just looked up at her with a peaceable expression, eyes wide and unsurprised. Damn. Marianne would catch her off guard eventually.

“Ah, Chef,” Nicollier said. “I was just telling Juliette about my first visit here.”

So it was going to be like that, then. Marianne’s smile could have frozen hell. “Very nice,” she said. “Please, follow me to your table.”

Nicollier rose to her full height, exchanged a few parting words with the girl and her mother, and followed Marianne over to a small table by the wall, set for one. As Nicollier sat, folding her jacket over the back of her chair, Sophie appeared.

“Sophie will be serving you again today,” Marianne said. “And I’ll bring out your portrait. Please enjoy your meal.”

“Thank you,” Nicollier said, and Marianne gave her a sour-mouthed smile before retreating into the kitchens.

“Go time, David,” she barked, the door swinging shut behind her. David blanched from where he was taking an octopus out of the marinade.

“She’s here already?”

“Oui. I don’t know where the fucking spider crab is but it better be ready in ten, m’entendez?”

“Marianne,” Sophie cut in from the door, and Marianne whirled.

“She _already_ has something? What is it?”

“No, not exactly.” Sophie made that far-too-familiar face that meant she was deciding how best to deliver bad news. Finally, she said, “Regular menu, no changes.”

Marianne paused. “Not dairy-free?”

“Regular menu,” Sophie repeated.

Regular menu. Which meant- no. There was no time for that. Marianne gritted her teeth and marched into the freezer again, reminding herself that the best chefs did not spit in people’s food.

It was a Madagascar vanilla cake today that she had cut into the precise 10cm-by-15cm blocks, and it was these that she now unwrapped and set down on her workbench. She had gone to the immense trouble of making a perfectly designed set of fruit-based sorbets _knowing_ Nicollier would be here, and yet- the thought made Marianne so angry that she felt her hands start to tremble. She quashed it with ruthless efficiency and diverted all her anger into applying the base gelato with a tiny icing spatula.

Marianne had tested twelve combinations, and settled on piri piri chiles, dried and blended with a Ghanaian 72% chocolate, added to a cream-based gelato. It would blend with the lighter flavor profiles, she hoped. That was the thing with throwing chiles all willy-nilly into desserts- you could never quite know for sure if it would bring out the sweetness or just throw it off. Marianne liked this expression, ‘willy-nilly’. She had picked it up from David, to the horror of Camille and Antoine.

Marianne sank into a quiet focus, forgetting everything but the breeze of the fan on her skin and the exact motions of her hands. She loved the bustle of the kitchen, yes. But there was another kind of pleasure to be found in the silence here, nothing but the hum of the freezer and the dim laughter from the kitchen. It was truly the perfect place to-

Marianne stopped. Looked up. Listened closer. What the hell were they doing in there?

She threw the freezer door open and regarded the scene with horror. Nicollier- _Nicollier_ \- was standing in the doorway across from Camille’s station, arms folded and nodding along to whatever Camille was excitedly explaining. She said something, her head tilted, and Camille, with a showy flick of her wrist, tossed the contents of the pan she was wielding.

Marianne had seen enough.

“Oh, christ, Marianne’s on the warpath,” Antoine muttered, but even he had the foresight to get out of the way.

“Excuse me,” Marianne barked, right behind Camille, who yelped.

“Chef,” she said hastily, turning off the heat and transferring the hen-of-the-woods to the plate. Oh, so _now_ it was ‘chef’. Marianne bared her teeth and prepared to unleash her wrath.

Fortunately for Camille and Nicollier, Mathilde appeared like a guardian angel at Marianne’s side.

“Marianne, I’d like you to taste something,” she said politely, and Marianne deflated. Who could stay angry when faced with Mathilde’s ineffable politeness? Damn Normands.

“Okay,” she said, and shot daggers at Camille and- Nicollier was no longer in the doorway. Marianne glanced at the empty space where she had been, and wondered, briefly, what she had wanted.

The resulting portrait was less flattering than the previous one, likely because Marianne had made it while seething, a constant litany of ‘ _a better portrait a better portrait_ ’ running through her mind. This Nicollier was smug, her mouth barely turned up at one corner, eyes wide and knowing, chin tipped up. That would do.

Each step toward that blonde head of hair was a reckless thrum of energy. Marianne set the portrait down in front of her, folded her hands in front of her stomach, and waited.

Nicollier studied her first, just as she had done before. This time Marianne refused to break her gaze, and eventually Nicollier looked to the portrait. She contemplated it for a long time, face unchanging. Then she picked up her spoon, and cut a corner off the cake. When she tasted it her eyes closed, and Marianne had to look away.

“Is it better?”

Nicollier seemed to decide against laughing. She nodded, very seriously. “Yes.”

Marianne inclined her head, almost satisfied, and made to leave, but Nicollier spoke again.

“May I ask you a few questions?”

Marianne glanced at the vintage clock hung unobtrusively on the wall. Nicollier’s habit of being perpetually early had come in handy, at least. “Two.”

Nicollier pulled a pen and a tiny notepad out of God-knows-where, and set them on the table. Her eyes didn’t waver from Marianne’s as she turned in her seat to face her. They were close enough now that her knees almost brushed Marianne’s.

“What do you like about the kitchens here?”

“The intimacy of it,” Marianne said, instantly. Softball question, she thought to herself. “How it can’t be replicated. You can’t do our menu in a big restaurant.”

“Favourite dish?”

Marianne considered it for a long moment. “The milk-marinated quail, with the kumquats.”

Nicollier’s eyebrows went up in muted surprise. “Not the portraits?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because that’s what you expected me to say.”

Nicollier leaned forward in her seat, and Marianne met her eyes in unspoken challenge. Then, unexpectedly, she smiled. Not a full smile. But closer than Marianne had ever seen her to delighted.

“I would like to have dinner with you,” she said.

Marianne reeled. “You _what_?”

“To have dinner,” Nicollier repeated.

“With me. I heard you.” Marianne shifted, feeling suddenly off-balance. “I have service here every night.”

Nicollier nodded to herself. “I’ll buy for two next time, then.”

She set the pen down and flipped the notepad shut, tucking it away in her dress. Marianne, annoyed at her sheer presumptuousness, was about to tell her exactly where she could put her money, but stopped herself. Nicollier wanted dinner? Fine. She would get it.

“I hope you enjoyed your meal,” she said, her customary adieu, and turned to go attend to the next portraits.

“I will,” Nicollier corrected, and Marianne couldn’t see her expression but she _knew_ it was smug, she just knew it.

On her way back from the next table, she allowed herself a glance at Nicollier’s table. The seat was empty, the plate from the portrait still sitting there. Marianne was about to move away, to let the staff clear it, when a glint of metal caught her eye. Nicollier’s pen. She had left it behind.

Marianne made a slight detour, and hesitated a short moment before picking it up and sliding it into the pen pocket of her apron. It was a perfectly good pen, no matter how slimy its previous owner. She felt her blood pressure rise at the reminder of Nicollier, and quelled the angry heat blooming in her cheeks. It was _her_ pen now.


	5. lime sorbet

That evening as Marianne sorted the leftovers into neatly labelled containers, she brushed her fingers over the pen in the pocket. She had nearly forgotten about it in the bustle of service, and now she inspected it closer. It had a weight to it; a high-quality model, dark blue gleaming metal. The clip was gold, likely real. Beneath it there was a tiny gold monogram: _‘H.N.’_ , the letters twined together _._

“We’re heading out,” Camille called. Marianne blinked, tearing her attention away from the pen.

“Okay, be safe. You have all the food you want?”

“Sure, except for the rest of the blackberries.”

“Fifty euros for that tiny shipment and you want to _snack_ on them?”

“Damn. Well, I tried.” Camille waved, cheerful, and beckoned to David. “Let’s go, creampuff man.”

“Creampuff man?”

“It’s an endearment. You’ve never heard anyone call someone ‘ _mon petit chou_ ’?”

“Okay, there’s a very pronounced difference between my little creampuff and creampuff man-”

“Is there? Must be an American thing. Bye, Marianne!”

Marianne waved them off, feeling like a long-suffering mother of seven, and moved her attention to re-ordering the spices at her station.

“Nice pen,” Antoine said offhandedly.

Marianne blinked, immediately on the defensive. “What?”

His eyebrows went up, and he tipped his head toward her hand. Marianne looked, and found that she was rolling the pen absentmindedly between her fingers. She flushed and hastily slid it back into her pen pocket.

Wrong move. Antoine’s eyebrows rose even further. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but Mathilde- bless her heart- cut in.

“Here,” she said, offering Marianne a stack of containers. “The rest of the leftovers from today.”

“Oh, good,” Marianne said, relieved, and took them. She beat a hasty retreat to the station by the refrigerators, and inspected each container before stacking it on the sauce shelf. David had left the remaining turbot unlabelled, because of _course_ he had, it was like he was trying to fulfill all Antoine’s prejudices about Americans. Marianne reached for Nicollier’s- _her_ \- pen, but, aware of Antoine’s contemplative stare, skipped over it and landed on the permanent marker. She scribbled the label and the date onto a strip of tape and pressed it to the plastic lid.

“Allons-y,” Antoine said much too casually, and as he passed behind her he tried to pluck the pen from her pocket. The operative word there was ‘tried’. A decade of training with her father was not for nothing- Marianne whirled and snatched it neatly from his hand. Precision in all things, especially hand-eye coordination. She tucked the pen victoriously back in her pocket, and gave Antoine a narrow-eyed look. He was grinning ear-to-ear, which was remarkable given that he had just lost a competition, and the only person who hated losing worse than him was Marianne.

“Marianne,” he drawled, elbows on the counter and chin resting on his hands. “Where’d you get that pen?”

“From a table,” Marianne said shortly.

“Sure,” he said, and, mysteriously, dropped the matter. Marianne sighed, braced herself for some horrible third-degree treatment later, and put the last container of turbot into the refrigerator.

“Let’s go, busybody.”

“Sure thing, dickhead.”

Monday dawned and Marianne found herself re-evaluating everything she had ever known about Murphy’s Law.

“Seven thousand,” she said, dumbfounded. Then, louder, “Seven thousand?”

Camille bowed her head sheepishly, shifting from foot to foot. “I’m sorry. I meant to order seven hundred but I hit an extra zero by accident.”

“An extra zero-?”

“And also I ordered lamb chops,” Antoine added.

“Lamb chops,” Marianne said, slowly.

Antoine nodded, completely unrepentant.

“What were you supposed to order?”

“Veal.”

“ _Antoine_ -“

“I just don’t like cooking veal! And lamb chops are in season!”

“We put veal on the menu!”

“Can’t you appreciate a good lamb chop? Slow-cooked, braised, rosemary, citrus- Marianne, I am speaking from my heart here.”

“I wish you’d speak from your brain instead,” Marianne snapped, and went back into the freezer to calm down.

She took deep breaths for five seconds before realising that in her absence everything was probably going to shit, at which point she came back out of the freezer. Everyone was back to work with prepping, at least. Mathilde caught Marianne by the arm and gave her the trademarked Everyone Else Fucked Up And I Am Compensating smile.

“I’m testing a new citrus-based baste for the lamb chops,” she said serenely. “I think it’ll work well with kumquat.”

“Mathilde,” Marianne sighed. “You are the only thing keeping me sane. Sophie?”

“Yes, Marianne?”

“Stop lurking in the corner and just give me the bad news.”

“It’s not bad, per se,” Sophie said, but she said it so hesitantly that Marianne’s jaw locked instinctively. “You know how reservations were released today?”

“And?”

“For all of next month, right?”

“Sophie,” Marianne said warningly. “If you are going to tell me that-“

“Well, she booked for tomorrow,” Sophie said placatingly. “And then nothing else.”

“Just for tomorrow?” Marianne relaxed a little. Well, that wasn’t so bad.

“Don’t unclench just yet,” Antoine said cheerfully, from where he was dunking the lamb chops in their marinade. “Sophie still has her bad news face on.”

“Antoine, will you-“

“No, he’s right.” Sophie shuffled the iPad around in her hands. “She included a special request.”

“Did she book for two?”

“Well,” Sophie said. She was taking her sweet time with this one. “Yes, but-”

“Don’t tell me,” Marianne decided. “Just- don’t tell me. I’m going to go over there and deal with Camille and the kumquats. This is a tomorrow problem.”

Marianne followed through- she marched away to Camille’s station, head held high. _I’ll buy for two_ , Nicollier had said. Even she wasn’t crazy enough to spend over a thousand euros here, though.

Right?

Marianne dismissed her suspicion and turned to the latest and greatest problem at hand.

“Okay, everyone. What are we going to do with seven thousand kumquats?”

“Thinly sliced,” Mathilde said. “For a nice salad.”

“Cake,” offered David. “Like a pineapple upside-down, or something.”

“We should do macarons!” This from Camille, as she picked up one of the peaches and bit into it.

“I’m not making fucking macarons again,” Marianne cut in. “And for God’s sake, don’t leave your bite marks in the peaches. Do you know how much those cost?”

“I’m our quality control, Marianne.”

“You have a lot of nerve saying that after ordering seven thousand kumquats.”

“They’re very cute, though,” Camille said, and thrust one up against Marianne’s nose. She pitched her voice up in an imitation of a kumquat, and said, “Eat me, Marianne! And forgive Camille!”

Marianne plucked it from her hand and peeled it all in one go with the fine edge of one fingernail. With one hand she popped the sweet orange peel in her mouth, and with the other she separated the kumquat into neat quarters, and dropped them into Camille’s still-outstretched palm.

“Okay,” Camille said, after a moment of silence. “They didn’t teach _me_ that in culinary school.”

“Me neither.”

“Well, Day-vid, it seems like they didn’t teach you anything in culinary school, judging from these clams.”

“They’re _au naturel,_ that’s what they look like!”

“Are you sure? They’re so- lumpy.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be cooking the vegetables?”

“My job is harder than yours, shithead.”

“Stop it, both of you.” Marianne pressed two fingers into her temples. “Put kumquats in the salad at lunch service. And on the oysters or something. Please let the texture not be shit.”

Thanks mostly to Mathilde, the texture was not shit, and lunch service went fine. After that, dinner was the same old bustle. Marianne made her portraits, glowering all the time at the rack of dairy-free sorbets sitting innocuously off to the side.

The second Sophie arrived on Tuesday Marianne pounced on her.

“Nicollier!” she barked. Sophie jumped, nearly dropping the iPad.

“What! Where?”

“No, for today. What did she do?”

“Right, that. She booked for 17.45.”

“Okay,” Marianne said slowly. “Is that all?”

Sophie shook her head. “And-” _the dreaded ‘and’_ \- “she sent a note asking for a table at 17.15.”

“Oh.” That was easy enough. “Tell her no.”

“Are you sure?”

“Why would I not be sure?”

Sophie paused, then flipped the iPad around so that Marianne could see the screen. “Read the message,” she said.

There in tiny lettering on the screen: ’ _I am writing to enquire whether I might find a table free at 17h15, with company supplied. H.N.’_ Short, succinct, oddly formal. Typical.

Sophie flipped it back around, eyebrows raised. “Did she, by chance, say something to you on Sunday?”

“She just said she wanted to have dinner.”

“That _is_ why people come to the restaurant,” Sophie said, patiently.

“No, not just dinner. _Dinner_. With me.”

Sophie’s eyes went wide. She stared at Marianne for a long moment. “She said she wanted to have dinner with you?”

“Yes,” Marianne said, feeling suddenly very defensive even though there was nothing to be defensive about. “And I said I’d be on service, and she said that she would buy for two.”

“What’s happening?” Antoine asked, tying his apron around his waist.

“Nicollier’s trying to book for 17.15 today.”

Antoine whistled. “Why is she doing that?”

“She’s having dinner with Marianne.”

That stopped Antoine in his tracks. “What the hell for? She should be having dinner with me. I’m far more interesting.”

“You don’t do the portraits,” Sophie cut in. Marianne, who was about to say something much more unpleasant, nodded in agreement.

“That’s true,” Antoine allowed. “But- how many times has she come here now?”

They took a collective pause, all squinting in effort.

“Three,” Sophie said, finally. “If you count the first time.”

“And she had the regular menu the last time?”

Sophie nodded. Antoine made a face, then shrugged.

“Well, I can’t get my head around it,” he said cheerfully.

“You can’t get your head around anything,” Marianne interjected, even more cheerfully. _Opening, setup, punchline_. “Too blown up.”

Antoine threw a kumquat at her.

“What do I say to her?” Sophie asked, interrupting what was sure to become a full-blown brawl.

Marianne hesitated a long moment. Well, it was bound to be interesting. “Tell her 17.30,” she said.

Lunch service passed without a hitch. Camille rolled out the cot and took a nap interrupted only by Antoine drawing a pickled herring on her ear. Marianne stayed in the kitchen and helped Mathilde tweak the soup until the ratio of venison to pigeon was perfect. David did something complicated with the clams at his station- Marianne watched him for a moment before deciding not to get involved.

“Antoine,” she called. After a moment Antoine slithered in and gave her an inquisitive look.

“What?”

“How much time is left on the bresaola?”

“Which one?”

“Mutton.”

He shrugged. “We could probably cure it for, what, two more weeks?”

“And the beef one?”

“Three months, bare minimum.” He lifted a finger in warning, eyes narrowing. “No, I know that look. It’s curing for three more months whether you like it or not. I swear I’ll move it to my apartment, Marianne. I’ll do it.”

Marianne shrugged. “Fine. Have it your way.” She checked the clock unnecessarily, and said, “Two minutes to four. Camille!”

“Come cook your vegetables,” Antoine sang.

“I’m going to kick the shit out of you,” Camille threatened. One of her ears was smeared with black where she had tried to wash off the pickled herring (it had mostly looked like a few crooked chunks arranged in a semi-phallic shape to Marianne, but who was she to assume). When Antoine just giggled in response, Camille picked up one of the specialty woks, and Marianne decided to intervene.

“After the dinner service,” she called. Camille dropped the wok and stormed over to her station, her middle finger hoisted proudly in the air.

Marianne sighed and went to go label her gelato containers.

Nicollier arrived seven minutes early, but Marianne was already waiting for her at the door of the empty dining room. _Ha!_

“Chef,“ said Nicollier, and offered her hand.

“Nicollier,” Marianne returned, and took it. They shook hands for a seemingly interminable amount of time, Marianne unwilling to be the first to drop and Nicollier clearly at ease. After probably thirty seconds it built up to a point where Marianne snorted to herself, and dropped her hand.

“Here’s your table,” she said, indicating a table by the fireplace. Nicollier nodded and sat on one of the seats, and after a moment, Marianne followed, sitting opposite from her.

“You have-“ a glance at the clock- “twenty-one minutes of my time.”

“They will be treasured,” Nicollier said, without a hint of irony. Marianne stared at her, unsure if she was joking or not, but her eyes were wide and guileless.

“Well,” Marianne said, and coughed, a touch awkwardly. “Why did you ask me to dinner?”

Nicollier retrieved the notepad from some indeterminable location in her dress and set it on the table. “I would like to see you at your most honest,” she said.

That floored Marianne. _What the hell?_ “My most honest?”

Nicollier nodded.

“In the kitchen, probably,” Marianne said, bewildered. _And sex. What? No._

“See, even now. You don’t say everything.” Nicollier flicked her thumb over the cover of the notepad; Marianne’s eyes followed the motion. “Your thoughts remain a mystery.”

“My _thoughts_ \- you are-“

When she paused, no good word forthcoming, Nicollier leaned forward in her chair. “No, say it. Please.”

“You’re a critic,” Marianne said, dumbfounded, eyes fixing on the notepad. This was not at all what she had expected from this so-called dinner. Another cursory introduction, another ludicrously long handshake, maybe a few hidden barbs. Not _honesty_.

“Are you worried that I’ll write what you say in my review? I won’t.” Nicollier crossed her fingers. “Off the record.”

“Usually when you cross your fingers it means you’re going to break the promise,” Marianne said.

“Really?” Nicollier dropped her hand back to the tabletop, looking contrite. It might have pissed Marianne off if she didn’t seem so oddly sincere. “I’m serious. Off the record. I would like you to be honest with me.”

 _Honest?_ Marianne cautioned herself not to say anything too rash, and then- “Bizarre.”

“Hm?”

“You are.” _Well, shit_. “That’s what I was going to say.”

Nicollier gave her a half-smile. “Thank you. In the interest of honesty, you are also bizarre.”

Marianne frowned. _Coming from probably the most picky guest she had ever served._ She omitted that, and said, “If it’s not going in your review, why are you here?”

“I told you already. I would like to see you-“

“At my most honest. Right.” Marianne studied her for a moment. “Fine. Sophie?”

Sophie appeared seemingly out of nowhere. It was an endless source of wonder to Marianne as to how she did that. “Yes, Marianne?”

“Can you get me a bowl of kumquats?”

Sophie’s eyebrows went up. She looked curiously between Nicollier, who was impassive as always, and Marianne. “Sure.”

The bowl of kumquats was deposited in the middle of the table shortly thereafter.

“Here’s the thing about kumquats,” Marianne said briskly, and plucked one from the bowl. “You’ve had them before?”

“Not whole.” Nicollier followed her lead, holding it gingerly between two fingers.

“Really?” Marianne considered, for a half-second, telling her to bite right into it, but decided it was too cruel. “There are four parts to one- skin, pulp, juice, and the seeds. Some of them have seeds, some don’t. Just take the top off with your teeth-“ she bit into it carefully, just enough to peel off a thimble’s-worth of skin and nothing more- “and then squeeze it into the little glass.”

Nicollier complied. She was holding it between her thumb and two fingers. Marianne began to say, “Careful not to-“ just as Nicollier cupped her other hand around it, and squeezed.

The juice went everywhere.

Well, more specifically, all over Nicollier’s arm, and also in a faint spatter of yellow-orange spots up the tablecloth. Marianne clapped a hand over her mouth, sort of in an expression of shock but mostly just to keep herself from laughing. Nicollier made a rueful face and, again before Marianne could warn against it, licked at the juice running down the side of her arm. Marianne had only a moment to stare at the pink flash of her tongue before her mouth pinched, her eyes closed, her nose scrunched up, and she twisted in her chair as if trying to get away from the acidity.

“Sour, right?” Marianne said, still smiling despite her best efforts. Nicollier opened her eyes and scowled, but there was no punch behind it. This was perhaps the most genuine Marianne had ever seen her.

“Almost as bad as a lemon,” she said, and then looked pensive for a second. “Actually, it has this very chalky taste at the back of the tongue. Sort of like the taste buds have gone numb.” And then, _again_ , for the _second time_ , she brought her wrist to her mouth and licked it, and _again_ , she made that face. “A tingling in the lips, too,” she said thoughtfully.

 _A tingling in the lips_? Who the fuck said that? Marianne’s eyes went to her lips- they were nicely-shaped, she supposed, if one looked for that kind of thing. Very pink. In general Héloïse Nicollier could be described as not the worst-looking critic in Paris. But that was beside the point.

“Are you supposed to drink the juice?” Nicollier asked. It took Marianne an extra second to respond.

“No,” she said, and if it was a touch hoarse it was because of the acid from the kumquats.

At that moment two people came through the door, waving hesitantly, and Marianne realised with a start that the twenty-one minutes had passed. She rose, smoothing down her chef’s-apron, and nodded to Nicollier, who was still holding the ruins of one kumquat.

“Enjoy your dinner,” she said, and this time Nicollier’s smile was a little more real.

“Thank you.”

It was for the first time since the opening of Portrait that Marianne found herself staring at an unfinished portrait and wondering what the hell to do. She had gotten down the outline of the face, and time was ticking. There was a strict schedule to keep, after all. But somehow Nicollier’s face had changed. The lines were different. The eyes softer. After a long moment of deliberation Marianne gave into time constraints and set her down as she had been just now. Eyes wide in shock. A tiny drop of orange on her chin.

When she brought it out Nicollier stared at it for a moment. “You’re funny,” she said, sounding almost surprised. The bowl of kumquats was still sitting on her table- Marianne wondered why she hadn’t let one of the staff take it away.

“Thanks,” Marianne said. She was almost offended but she was starting to understand that sometimes Nicollier was like that- annoying as all hell, and very odd, but she meant the words she said.

“Is that really what I looked like?”

Marianne nodded. Nicollier, unexpectedly, seemed delighted, her eyebrows going up as she inspected the portrait.

“I hope you enjoyed your time here,” Marianne said. She hesitated, but _oh, what the hell._ She wouldn’t deny that she was curious. “Come back again soon.”

Nicollier looked up. Her eyes were disconcerting, her stare focused and intense. She lingered, briefly, on Marianne’s chest- _what?_ \- before she smiled.

“I will,” she said. “Thank you.”

When Marianne next made her rounds, Nicollier was gone, and the bowl of kumquats was empty.


	6. main course one

Sophie pulled her aside at 22.00, right as the doors closed for the night.

“Another email,” she said, and handed Marianne the iPad.

‘ _A little more olive oil in the gazpacho,’_ it read, and then below it, ‘ _I would like to visit the kitchens again, on Thursday at 9h00. In the interest of honesty. H.N.’_

“She has a lot of fucking nerve,” Marianne said grouchily, handing back the iPad. “Telling me how to make a gazpacho and then asking for a tour.”

“In the interest of honesty?”

“I know. Ridiculous, right?”

Sophie gave her a very odd look. “What does that even mean?”

“It’s a reference,” Marianne said, waving a hand. “Because she said she- well, nevermind. It doesn’t matter.”

Sophie nodded, slowly. “So what do I say to her?”

“I’m at the fromagerie at 9.00.”

“I’ll tell her 9.30, then,” Sophie said, in a tone that meant she was expecting a quick rebuttal and a declaration that Nicollier was to be kept at bay with a stick if necessary. When instead Marianne nodded absentmindedly, already thinking about tomorrow’s lunch menu (dried pears? roasted figs? who could say), Sophie stared at her for at least five seconds.

“What?”

“Nothing,” said Sophie, and went off with the iPad, shooting incredulous looks over her shoulder all the way to the kitchens.

Marianne finished inspecting the dining room- everything in order, napkins and tablecloths organised to be sent to the cleaners’- and made her way into the kitchens, where she found Sophie and all the chefs huddled together by Antoine’s station.

“What’s the problem here?” Marianne barked. They all looked up with looks of various degrees of guilt. Even Mathilde was there, wearing a saintly smile. _What the hell was going on?_

“Nothing,” Antoine said, so chipper that it set Marianne’s teeth on edge.

“If this is about the fucking sommelier again-“

“Sue me, I was interested-“

“Clean! The sooner everything’s put away the sooner we go home.” Marianne clapped twice, briskly, and they dispersed.

By the time everything was labelled and stored away, Antoine and Marianne were the only two left. Antoine hung up his apron, then came over to Marianne’s station and helped her put away the rest of the beet reduction.

“So,” he said, in a suspiciously mild tone. “I hear you’re letting Nicollier into the kitchens.”

Marianne shrugged. “Why not? She’s here all the time already.”

“You’ve never let any critics in the kitchens before.”

“It’s off-the-record.”

Antoine blinked. “Then why is she even coming?”

That was a good point, actually. Why _was_ she coming, if not to write about it? Marianne frowned. “I don’t know,” she said. “I think she’s curious.”

Antoine snorted, and punched her in the shoulder. “Cheers,” he said, and didn’t elaborate.

Wednesday was Marianne’s least favourite day of the week for a number of reasons. They somehow always ran out of the nice caviar at lunchtime and had to fall back on the middling caviar. The fromagerie didn’t sell goat cheese. The fishmongers at the seafood market were in an even worse mood than usual. According to Antoine the cucumbers looked like little tumours. All in all Marianne would have preferred to spend every Wednesday in the rooftop garden, watering the little nasturtiums. But, alas, there was work to be done.

“Strap your fucking pants on, David,” Camille said, tying her apron as she went to her station. “Marianne’s in a rut so she’s doing glass today.”

“Glass?”

“ _Ouais_ , glass. Like the sugar glass.” She pinched her fingers together. “Very thin, very sexy. Fun shapes. Marianne thinks that if you put glass on things then it makes people like them more.”

“Can someone turn an oven to two hundred degrees, please?” Marianne asked, pointedly ignoring her. Then, noticing that David was closest to the ovens, “Oh, sorry, David. That’s four hundred degrees in Fahrenheit.”

“All the ovens are in Celsius anyway,” David said, with the despairing tone of a man fighting a losing battle, and switched one on.

Marianne did like making glass. It was about the only thing that could save a Wednesday from being truly horrible. Fondant icing, liquid glucose, and isomalt sugar. A 2:1:1 ratio. Tempered to 140 degrees, left out to cool on a baking sheet. Blended, baked, and cooled again. Raw heaven in an aesthetic form.

“Camille, if you break another sous vide-!”

Still a Wednesday, though.

The next morning Marianne set off to the fromagerie in good spirits. Of course all the cheeses that were strictly necessary to the menus had been ordered already, but it was one of Marianne’s small pleasures- greeting the proprietor, wandering through the shelves with their little baskets, tasting tiny cuts of cheese. There was something about a tiny cut of cheese that made life seem more worthwhile.

When she returned, clutching a bag full of specialty cheeses, she was greeted with the unnerving sight of Nicollier opening the door for her.

“Good morning,” Nicollier said politely.

Marianne stared at her. _What the-?_ “What are you doing here?”

Nicollier looked bemusedly at Marianne, then at her watch, then back to Marianne. “Thursday, nine thirty.”

“What?”

“I came to see the kitchens.”

“Did I invite you?”

Nicollier nodded.

“I did?” Now that she thought about it, she had said yes to Sophie. What the hell had she done that for? “Well, come in.”

“I _am_ in,” Nicollier pointed out.

Marianne resigned herself to a stressful morning, and gestured vaguely in the direction of the kitchens. “Lead the way, then.”

When Nicollier turned around and marched off through the dining room, Marianne took the opportunity to look at her, or at least the back of her. Nicollier was wearing a pair of remarkably well-tailored grey pants. Not that anything underneath the pants was remarkable. Just that the pants were- it was rare to- well, not really rare, lots of women had tailored pants, but- anyways. Nicollier was wearing a pair of grey pants, which were tailored. No. Nicollier was wearing grey pants. Not that it mattered either way. She could wear pink poodle pants and it would be all the same to Marianne.

“Nice to meet you,” David was saying. He and Nicollier shook hands, brief and perfunctory. Marianne jolted back into the present, and cleared her throat.

“Everyone-“ everyone consisting of David and Mathilde, who were the only other people in the kitchens at 9.38- “we have a visitor.”

“Hi,” David said.

Mathilde seemed generally unconcerned with the presence of a high-profile critic in their kitchens. Instead she lit up at the sight of the fromagerie bag in Marianne’s hand.

“Did you get the Saint-Félicien?”

“Of course. And the Chavignol, I couldn’t resist.” Marianne set the bag on Camille’s empty station and opened it up for Mathilde’s perusal.

“How long has it been aged for?”

“I got one of the _bleuté_ and one of the _affiné_.”

With barely-restrained joy Mathilde pulled out the two wrapped Chavignols. Then she gasped. “A Brillat Savarin! Is it going on the cheese selection?”

“I don’t know. The issue is the wine pairing.” It was always the fucking wine pairing. It had been three weeks since the Wine Cellar Affair now and Marianne had yet to find a trained sommelier to replace him.

“For a Brillat Savarin?”

Marianne had almost forgotten about Nicollier. “Yes. We don’t have a sommelier anymore.”

“May I taste the cheese?”

Marianne looked to Mathilde, who nodded. Carefully she unwrapped the brown paper and used a cheese knife to slice a precise triangle, which she dropped into Nicollier’s outstretched palm.

When Nicollier went through the holy ritual of smelling-tasting-smelling her eyes closed and her eyebrows pulled together in concentration. Her horribly perfect posture relaxed for a moment, and she looked almost human.

“Champagne, brut,” she said, decisively. “Do you have a wine cellar?”

Marianne made a mental note- Nicollier was a wine snob. Absolutely fucking typical. “Of course.”

She led the way, flicking on the lights as they descended the short flight of stairs. The cellar was a large, dimly lit room with enormous wooden shelves of wine- Marianne had collected some of it, but wine pairing was hardly her specialty, and she stayed in the kitchens whenever possible. Nicollier, meanwhile, looked like a puppy that had been let off its leash.

“How is it organised?”

“By region, I think, and then by grape varietal.”

Nicollier nodded once, looking determined, and after barely a few seconds of looking managed to find the champagne section. She scanned the sizable offering of bottles for a moment, then with a tiny ‘aha!’ noise pulled one from the wall.

“This one,” she said, with a remarkable amount of confidence. “Dom Perignon, oenothèque, 1992.”

“Why do you think so?”

Nicollier’s cheek hollowed when she bit the inside. “Grapefruit tones,” she explained. “Hot summer, early harvest. Brillat Savarin is a sweet triple crème, so the sharpness of the citrus plays nicely against that. Then the bouquet- almond, mango, fig.”

“Earthiness,” Marianne said, finishing the thought. She tapped her fingers against her mouth, and found, not entirely with displeasure, that she understood what Nicollier was saying. “I see.”

Nicollier smiled, and offered the champagne. Her face seemed softer in the pale light of the wine cellar, and when Marianne took it from her she was hit with the sudden realisation that they were of the same height. It was an odd thing to notice, but it stayed with her even as Nicollier turned on her heel and went back up the stairs. The bottle was still warm around the neck where Nicollier had held it.

She was right. It went perfectly.

Camille came in just as Marianne was putting the finishing touches on a test of a new vegetarian dish. She waved at David, dipped a spoon in the sauce that Mathilde had concocted, licked said spoon, saw Nicollier standing next to Marianne’s station, and did a double take so pronounced that she nearly tripped over herself. All in a matter of seconds.

“Good morning, Camille,” Marianne said drily.

“Hi,” Camille said breathlessly to Nicollier, completely ignoring Marianne. “We met already. I’m Camille, the entremetier here at Portrait.”

“Héloïse,” Nicollier returned. Which- what?

Antoine came in then, tossing his jacket up on the hook and pulling down his apron. He smacked a kiss to Camille’s cheek and tried to give Marianne the same treatment before being thwarted by a menacing icing spatula. He very nearly did the same to Nicollier, but recognised her just in time. His hackles went up. Antoine hated critics even more than Marianne did, on principle.

“Antoine Hecquet,” he said. He didn’t even bother holding up a hand. Nicollier sized him up for a moment.

“Héloïse Nicollier,” she responded, coolly. Her expression was frigid, eyes stony. Unreadable. It looked like the beginning of a duel rather than a meeting between sort-of-colleagues.

“Look, Antoine,” Marianne said, mostly to diffuse the tension, and handed him the plate and a fork. Antoine took a cautious bite, chewed for a second, then gagged.

“Is that _tempeh_?”

“Yes. Why are you so dramatic?”

“It’s tempeh, Marianne. You wasted that beautiful sauce on soybean cake?”

“I don’t think it’s that bad,” Camille said.

Marianne shot her a grateful look and said thoughtfully, “I think we could put it on the vegetarian menu. We just need to find a wine pairing.”

“It could go with a good Chablis,” Antoine interjected, in the tone that meant sass was incoming. “Or you could just serve it like regular dog shit and call it a day.”

“Antoine, I am going to fire you someday and it will be the happiest day of my life.”

Someone laughed. Marianne turned, but the threat died in her throat. It was Nicollier, her well-proportioned face split by a grin that made her seem five years younger and ten times less pretentious.

“Sorry,” she said, but she was still smiling, not looking sorry at all, and for some reason it took Marianne a few seconds longer than normal to remember herself.

“No, sorry. That was unprofessional.”

“I don’t mind. Journalistic integrity.” She waved her notepad, which was still closed. Marianne couldn’t remember seeing her ever actually use the damn thing. “I’m reporting the truth.”

“I thought this was off-the-record,” Antoine said sharply.

“It is.”

Camille slunk up beside Antoine, leaning faux-casually against the countertop. “So. How did you convince Marianne to let you in here?”

“I asked.”

Antoine looked positively gleeful, his distrust melting away at the chance to embarrass Marianne. “And what was her reaction?”

Marianne very distinctly remembered saying at least three things that could be described as ‘horrifyingly rude’ at best. Instead of listing those, Nicollier said, “She was very polite.”

Antoine gaped. So did Camille. They looked at each other for a moment before Antoine turned back, and said, without bothering to hide his incredulity, “She was what?”

“Polite.”

“Marianne was?”

Nicollier nodded. “Unwaveringly.”

“Unwaveringly?”

“She was.”

"Marianne?"

"Yes."

“Are you sure it was her?”

“Your shortrib is waiting,” Marianne snapped. Antoine stared at her for another long moment, shook his head disbelievingly, and went off with Camille to deal with it.

“You run a very unusual kitchen,” Nicollier said.

Marianne snorted. That wasn’t something she needed to be told. “Is unusual a good thing?”

“I hope so.” Nicollier opened the notepad and flipped it shut again, a rare nervous tic. “I have a request.”

“You seem to have nothing but requests,” Marianne said drily.

“I would like an interview.”

Across the kitchen Antoine dropped a spatula. It clattered loudly to the marble countertop. When Marianne glanced over he was inspecting an empty pan and pretending to explain something to Camille. Marianne shot them a frigid look.

“An interview?”

“Yes.”

“With me?”

“No, with that man over there.” When Marianne blinked at her, bewildered, she made a self-deprecating face. “That was a joke.”

“Ah.”

“But yes. An interview. I would like to see more of your kitchen. Of the process.” Without so much as looking at a clock she continued, “I have to leave now,” and stuck out her hand. Marianne shook it. This time Nicollier was the first to drop, and Marianne was so bewildered that she almost forgot to relish the victory.

“Okay.”

“Send me a note,” Nicollier said. She started backing up, and added, “goodbye,” before turning and disappearing out the kitchen doors.

They had hardly closed behind her before Camille and Antoine pounced on Marianne.

“What the fuck,” whispered Camille, at a volume that was decidedly not whisper-level. “What the fuck what the fuck!”

“What? What is wrong with you people?”

“Nicollier doesn’t do interviews,” Antoine hissed.

“What?”

“Never. Not once. Only reviews.”

“Why is she so sexy!” This was from Camille, not Marianne.

“You think she’s-“

“She _is_ , Marianne, she’s sexy.”

“She’s not. She’s pretentious.”

“And?”

“She wears tailored pants, for Christ’s sake,” Marianne said, before her brain could inform her mouth that this was not an appropriate observation to make out loud.

Camille gawped. “How do you know her pants are tailored?”

Marianne blinked. “It’s just-“ With two hands she approximated a gesture signifying tailored pants. “You can tell. Don’t give me that look, Antoine. Just because you don’t know anything about anything doesn’t mean everyone else is the same.”

It was too little, too late. There was a light already dawning in their eyes.

“Tailored pants,” Antoine murmured, to himself. “Camille?”

“Antoine?”

“Let’s go over there.”

“Bye, Marianne.”

“Goodbye,” Marianne said resignedly. Once they were gone she leaned back against the countertop and thought, _an interview._ It was all too much to process on a Thursday morning, and Marianne decided not to try. She went off to go deal with the pistachio gelato instead.


	7. main course two

Thursday passed. It took a full thirty hours after the Nicollier visit for Marianne to finally achieve some level of peace, but now- now was an oasis of calm in a generally shit day. It was coming after the least organised lunch service they had ever had, and Marianne was becoming ever-more-aware of the fact that she hadn't come up with a good dish in almost a week. Right now the quiet was mostly a result of Camille storming out after she and Marianne had lit into each other over a batch of candied kumquats. Mathilde, even more tranquil than usual, was tweaking the recipe for a sweet pimentón sauce on the other side of the kitchen. Antoine was carving a venison loin. David had left the door to the kitchens open on his way out after Camille, and there was an afternoon breeze coming in, bringing with it the smell of cigarette smoke. A group of people passed by on the street, their obnoxious laughter filtering in through the open door.

Marianne, for her part, was pouring all her focus into peeling back the hairy red peel of a rambutan fruit. Maybe she could incorporate the skin into the presentation somehow. Or just leave it _au naturel._ She imagined setting a whole unpeeled fruit onto an otherwise bare plate and handing it to Nicollier. _How many Michelin stars is that worth, hm?_

Well, the review wasn’t out yet. So maybe not. At this rate Marianne was going to be grey-haired at thirty. How long did it take to write a review, anyway? A day? Two days? She could ask Camille what Nicollier's output was, but- that wording choice was poor, not her _output_ , her rate of review-writing-and-publishing- but Camille would doubtless go banshee with delight and that was the last thing Marianne needed on a day like this. Besides, Camille was upset at her. So there was no point in asking.

“Marianne,” Antoine called, in a tone that meant whatever came next would be nothing good. Marianne sighed, and kept her gaze fixed on the rambutan.

“What?” _Please don’t ask about the interview._

“Are you going to do the interview?”

 _Of fucking course._ “I don’t know.”

“I think you should.”

That gave Marianne pause. She considered inspecting him for brain damage but decided against- that might aggravate it. “Really?”

“Sure.”

“Why?”

“Good press. Nicollier likes you, even though you’re-“ he waved vaguely at Marianne- “like that.”

“Like _what_?”

“You know. Prickly.”

“I think you should do it,” Mathilde chimed in, narrowly saving Antoine from verbal evisceration. When Marianne turned to look at her she leaned down toward the pot she was stirring, her gaze remaining studiously on the sauce. “She seems nice.”

“Nice,” Marianne repeated, with as much skepticism injected into her voice as she could manage.

“She’s very charming.”

Nicollier was about as charming as a socially awkward moray eel, and Marianne would have said so were it not for the sudden appearance of a person at the door leading to the outside. Now normally this would not have stopped her. But-

“Bonjour,” Nicollier said.

Marianne gaped at her for a moment. Okay. She was probably a mirage, or some kind of hallucination. Maybe Antoine had passed on his brain damage. Mad cow disease! Marianne seized on that like a drowning woman. They had done steak tartare yesterday, for the lunch service. So it was certainly possible that it was all a figment of Marianne's ailing brain. Or maybe it was the consistent lack of sleep catching up to her after all these years. Or maybe- and Marianne hesitated to say this even to herself- it was real. Maybe Nicollier was really standing in the doorway, hands folded in front of her, looking even more stiff than normal.

But probably not.

Marianne elected to turn back around, and returned all her focus to peeling the rambutan.

“Salut,” Antoine said cheerfully.

“Antoine and I are going to go check on the gelato in the churn,” Mathilde added, and moments later the freezer door clicked shut. It sent all Marianne’s hopes of brain damage tumbling to the ground. Wearily she turned back around.

“Hi, what are you doing here,” she said.

“I thought I forgot my notepad.”

“You did?”

“No. I thought I did.”

Marianne felt the abrupt urge to lay down and sleep for a hundred thousand years. “So you didn’t?”

“I found it on the way here.” Nicollier reached into her back pocket- black pants today, _do not do NOT check to see if they’re tailored_ \- and produced the notepad.

“Then- why are you-?”

“I was on my way. It’s odd that the restaurant is all the way out here.”

“It’s a quiet location,” she said, with an edge. Nicollier had better not try this pretentious bit again, not on the day Marianne was having. Luckily Nicollier managed to read the room for once.

“It’s nice," she said.

“It is.” Marianne retracted her metaphorical claws. That had been a bit harsh- the reading the room, and also the comment about the moray eel. Nicollier was alright, most of the time.

"It's just far from where I had lunch. Are you having a bad day?”

A conversation with her was really not unlike experiencing whiplash. “Do I look like I’m having a bad day?”

“Sort of.” Nicollier fiddled with the notepad. “Tired. Not bad.”

 _Not bad._ Marianne resisted the urge to smooth down her hair. “Well. You don’t look tired.”

“Thank you. I slept well.”

When it seemed like nothing else was forthcoming, Marianne said, reluctantly, “You can come in, you know.”

Nicollier came in a little further, just to the edge of Antoine’s station. She looked around the kitchen expectantly, as if waiting for something to happen. Marianne picked at the rambutan skin with the edge of one fingernail. Maybe if she focused hard enough Nicollier would disappear, and she would be left in peace at last.

“A carpaccio?”

“Hm?” Marianne followed her pointing finger to the neat slices of venison on Antoine’s station. “Oh, yes. Seared venison. Antoine’s testing it out for tomorrow.”

“It’s an interesting choice.”

Oh. This was solid ground. Marianne could deal with a food critic who talked about food. “How so?”

“Just a different kind of dish. More disassembled. How is he dressing it?”

Marianne glanced at his station- leeks, parsnips, balsamic vinegar, red wine. “I’m not sure. Probably charred baby leeks, maybe parsnip crisps.”

Nicollier hummed, her expression unreadable. Unexpectedly Marianne found herself wanting to know what she was thinking. Good source of feedback, she reasoned. Neutral.

“Well?”

“It’s not concise,” Nicollier said finally. “It lacks the solidity of all your other dishes. The carpaccio, it’s spread out, it’s a carpet on a plate.”

Marianne tossed up the half-peeled rambutan and caught it in the same hand, an absentminded motion. She thought over the menu, the precise presentation of each plate, and though she hated to admit it she knew that Nicollier was right. It would be out of place.

Nicollier continued, “You can do a carpaccio at Akelarre. Subijana has that sort of style, where everything is laid out. But at Portrait?” She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

 _Concise_. That was it. Marianne dropped the rambutan and went to Antoine’s station, just beside where Nicollier was standing. With Antoine’s knife she cut off a sizable round of venison. It was coming together now, in her head- the venison seared just to rare and basted with garlic butter, the pureed parsnips with balsamic vinegar, perhaps roasted quince. White asparagus for the solid. Something sweet, with a crunch, to balance it all out.

“Do you mind if I-“ she said vaguely, already drifting. She didn’t finish her sentence, but Nicollier stepped over and made room regardless.

“Not at all.”

Nicollier watched her work in silence. Somewhere between the hiss of the venison against the pan and the retrieval of the quince from the oven, she disappeared, and, when Marianne was plating the rudimentary components, returned. She was holding a bottle of wine.

“The pairing,” she said, and set it down beside the finished plate.

“Welcome back to the world of the living,” Antoine added.

Marianne looked around, still half in a haze. The kitchen was bustling again; Camille and David had come back sometime in the last hour. From Mathilde’s station there was the signature smell of star anise. Antoine was using Marianne’s station to dress the shortrib he had marinated yesterday. Nicollier had taken off her jacket at some point, probably because of the heat from the ovens, which left her in just a white polo. Even her _shirts_ were monogrammed, just above the heart. Monogrammed shirts? What the hell was wrong with her? Marianne stared in barely-disguised loathing at the gold ‘H.N.’ for probably longer than strictly polite considering it was centimetres above her left nipple, which was visible, just the faintest contour, under the white fabric of her shirt, which meant she probably wasn’t wearing a-

“Syrah.” Nicollier tapped the bottle, and Marianne’s eyes snapped up, cheeks reddening from the heat of the stove. “Guigal Côte-Rôtie Château d’Ampuis, 2015.”

 _Nicollier, kitchen, Friday afternoon_. _Pre-dinner service._ “Okay,” Marianne said, without really processing any of it. “Do you want a taste?”

From across the kitchen Antoine and Camille entered simultaneous loud coughing fits. Marianne, alarmed, turned to look at them. Immediately Camille returned all her attention to the kumquats sitting in front of her, and Antoine started counting the short ribs on his fingers.

“Yes, thank you,” Nicollier said, tactfully not mentioning the insanity of the kitchen, or perhaps not noticing it. “Do you mind if I borrow a corkscrew?”

Marianne produced the corkscrew from her corkscrew pocket. When she handed it over their fingers brushed, briefly, over the cool metal. She ignored the involuntary shiver in favour of finding two glasses, into which Nicollier poured just a splash of burgundy wine.

“Enough?” she asked.

“Yes, that’s fine.” Marianne cut the venison into perfect quarters with her chef's knife, careful not to disturb the asparagus shoots. She handed Nicollier a fork, this time offering it so there was no chance of finger-touching, and they took a bite at the same time.

It was good. It was undeniably good. The gaminess, the earthy salt of the venison, the sweet-sour of the balsamic and the quince, the crisp freshness of the asparagus. With the wine it was even better. Marianne knew little about pretentious wine and cared even less, but this one was- fruity, sort of, smoky, almost like boysenberry. Vanilla? It paired beautifully.

“Good,” Nicollier said. She was watching Marianne, rolling the stem of her empty wine glass between her fingers.

“Good,” Marianne agreed. She held Nicollier’s gaze. After a moment, which might have been a second or twenty minutes, Nicollier smiled, and Marianne found herself almost-smiling back.

Antoine chose that moment to bounce over, wiping his hands off on a cloth, and the moment broke.

“Is that what you’ve done with my venison?” He stole a fork from Marianne’s cutlery pocket and took a bite. After a moment of chewing his eyebrows went up. “Not bad. Over time, though.”

“Over time?” Marianne looked at the clock on the wall- three minutes past four already. She swore, dropping her fork. “Dinner prep!” she called, unnecessarily. “Jesus, sorry. I got distracted.” She turned to Nicollier, who was already at the door, her jacket folded over her arm. “Is this your wine?”

Nicollier’s eyes lingered a long moment on Marianne before shifting to the uncorked bottle of wine on Antoine’s station. “Keep it,” she said, and disappeared down the hallway.

The moment the door clicked shut Antoine and Camille let out a simultaneous whoop.

“My God,” Camille said admiringly. Thank God- she wasn't angry anymore, if she was gossiping. “That woman.”

“I heard what she said about my carpaccio. Very rude.”

“She was right,” Marianne said with finality, trying to ward off the rest of the conversation. Antoine, undaunted, continued.

“Sure, she was right. But she’s very picky.”

“And charming.”

“And knowledgable.”

“And sexy.”

“That’s unprofessional,” Marianne snapped.

“I’m just saying I’d take a health code violation if she-”

“ _Camille_ -“

Antoine swept past Marianne and picked up the bottle of wine. He goggled at the label. “She brought a Château d’Ampuis?”

“Can everyone go back to-“

“Is Sophie here yet?” Antoine pressed the little intercom button that linked the kitchen to the head of staff. “Sophie?”

“Yes,” said Sophie’s disembodied voice.

“How much for a Château d’Ampuis? 2015.”

“Just a moment.” The clack of a keyboard, and Sophie returned. “Two hundred seventy-five euros.”

Camille swooned. David whistled. Even Mathilde made an impressed noise.

“Okay, everyone,” Marianne said, very loudly, “that’s enough. One hour forty-five to service. Sophie, are the menus in?”

“Yes, Marianne.”

“Good. Not another word about Nicollier until service is over.”

“Marianne, I’m rolling my eyes at you,” Camille said cheerfully, but she complied, and dinner passed in the normal orderly chaos.

Afterward, when all the guests had left and the kitchen was cleared, came one of Marianne's favourite parts. Sometime around eleven all the chefs congregated in the spotless kitchen, and held the nightly menu meeting. Marianne leaned back against the counter and opened her journal, where she wrote the notes that would eventually become tomorrow's menu. David wedged in between Antoine and Camille on the cot. Mathilde stood beside them, Camille's head leaning against her shoulder. Each of them had their recipe notebooks- not customised, much to Camille's disgust- open in front of them.

Camille, as always, began. “Tuber medley, herbal infusion, it’s already in the big book. Roasted scallop squash and pickled chanterelles with tamarind. And a light risotto, maybe a rigotte de Condrieu, with toasted nuts, and rapini to cut the richness.”

Marianne nodded, made a note in her journal. “David?”

“I ordered those stingrays a week ago,” he said. “I think grilled will be best, but I’ll try poaching them too. Paired with seawater foam and lemongrass.”

“Try adding a butter blossom,” Mathilde said, and David scribbled it down in his book.

“Then red snapper with braised morels, as a lighter dish. And a roasted sea bass with crab chowder and passionfruit.”

Antoine wrinkled his nose at the mention of chowder, but made no complaint. When Marianne nodded to him, he rattled off, “Dry aged beef with aubergine in mushroom broth, loin of lamb on rice and hen-of-the-woods, and whatever Marianne made with the venison today.”

Marianne flipped back a page, and examined her notes from the pre-service. “Seared to rare, garlic butter baste, roasted quince. Parsnips cooked down with sherry and pureed with balsamic vinegar. Steamed white asparagus. And then condensed Meyer lemon on top.”

“You talk so fucking fast,” Antoine muttered, but he wrote it all down without question.

“Done? Okay. Mathilde?”

“Sauces are all good to go. I’m looking at a queimada base again, sometime this week.”

“No,” Camille groaned piteously, dropping her head into the open pages of her notebook and closing the covers around her face. “Fuck. My eyebrows just grew back.”

Marianne laughed. “Yes, we can try it. I’ll order the _orujo_. Do we still have that miniature fire extinguisher?”

Camille hauled herself out of the notebook. “It’s in the supply closet."

“Perfect. As for me- stop yawning, Antoine- I had a coconut ice, but when we do the queimada that'll change to pomelo and _teurgoule_. Then a pistachio meringue with honeyed figs, and-“ she flipped to the back of the journal, where all the gelato recipes were- “the portrait. Anything else?”

“No,” they chorused.

“Thanks, everyone.” Marianne clapped twice, and stuck out her hand. Antoine gave her a dead-eyed stare. Mathilde and David complied, stacking their hands on top of hers. Camille’s eyes were closed, but when David nudged her she blinked awake and set her hand on top of Mathilde’s.

“Antoine,” Mathilde said sternly. Antoine sighed, and put his hand on top of Camille’s.

“On three,” said Marianne.

“Wait, _on_ three or after three?”

“Are you serious? We do this every night.”

“And it changes every time!”

“On fucking three. One, two, three.”

Their hands lifted. “Portrait!” said David, with enthusiasm.

“Portrait,” echoed everyone else, and dispersed.

Out of habit Marianne walked one more circle through the restaurant, and when she ventured past the door to the wine cellar she found Sophie locking up.

“Hi, Marianne,” Sophie said, hiding a yawn behind her hand. “Staff just left for the night.”

“Did they take the leftovers?”

“Yes. They liked the fun containers.”

“Good.” Marianne hesitated. Then- “Sophie?”

“Mhm?”

“Will you do me a favour?”

“Sure.”

“I’d like you to send a note to Nicollier.”

Sophie blinked, suddenly looking much more awake. “Okay. What should I say?”

Marianne thought for a moment of the venison, the look on Nicollier’s face. _Concision._ If that was what she had meant by ‘most honest’- well. Marianne could deal with that.

“Tell her yes."

Sophie smiled, a private sort of smile. Without asking for clarification, she said, "Anything else?"

"When she writes back, let me know."

Sophie's smile widened. "Okay. Have a good night, Marianne."

"You too." Marianne stared at her for a moment, trying to calculate the probability that everyone in this kitchen had developed mad cow disease overnight. It was low, she decided, but not impossible. She waved Sophie off and retreated to the kitchens, where instead of sweet respite she found Antoine, tapping his foot by the door.

“Finally,” he groused, pulling his jacket from the hook. “Come on, let’s go.”

“I’m giving Nicollier the interview.”

Antoine paused with his hand on the door. Mystifyingly, he laughed.“Of course you are.”

Marianne frowned. “What do you mean, of course?”

“Nothing, nothing.”

“Antoine-“

“Hurry up or I’m leaving without you.”

“Jackass.”

“Shithead.”

The lights went out, and the door clicked shut behind them.


	8. interlude: review one

“She really went to town on them.”

“Poor guys.”

“Didn’t Marianne work with them?”

“Oh, yeah, she did desserts for them for a little while.”

“Should we-“

“No, don’t show it to her.”

“Why not?”

“She’s already stressed enough. And it’s barely 7.00. You want to ruin her Saturday morning?”

“It’s not this bad every time.”

“Sure. But if she knows the guys-“

“No, I see what you mean.” A pause. “Jesus. An inconsequential foray into fusion cooking masquerading as haute cuisine? That’s brutal.”

“I can hear you,” Marianne said at normal volume, and felt the exact second that Antoine and Camille noticed the doorstop holding the freezer door open.

Guilty silence.

“Hi, Marianne,” Camille said weakly. “How’s your morning going?”

Marianne stepped out of the freezer, letting the door swing shut behind her. “What don’t you want to show me?”

“Okay,” Antoine said pacifyingly. “You don’t have to read it. But-“

“Is that a newspaper?”

He looked away, his hands staying behind his back. “No.”

“Give me the paper. What is it? A bad review?”

“Not of Portrait.”

“Then where?”

“That new place in the huitième. _Saenghwal._ ”

“Really? Laurent’s place?” Laurent Passard- Marianne knew him from the old days as _commis_ at L’Ambroisie. Tall, lanky, easygoing, with an interest in French-Korean fusion and bizarre plating. They had been friends for years; she had even designed a dessert menu for him a while ago.

“Yes, him.”

“Poor bastards. Not too bad, I hope.”

Camille and Antoine exchanged a significant look.

“It’s not just any critic,” Antoine said, slowly.

What the hell was he talking about? Not just any critic? As if Marianne were intimately familiar with the maggots. They were acting like Marianne was meant to hear the word ‘critic’ and instantly think of- _oh._

“The Nicollier review?”

They nodded in unison.

“And it’s not of Portrait?”

“No.”

“Give it to me.”

Reluctantly Antoine produced the newspaper and handed it over. It was on the first page of the food section, as Nicollier’s reviews always were, and titled ‘Life without meaning: Saenghwal misses the mark’.

“It’s pretty nasty,” Camille said hesitantly. “You probably shouldn’t-“

"Too late, she's already reading it."

_Saenghwal, at first glance, seems promising. Executive chefs Arnaud Coutanceau and Laurent Passard come out of the kitchens to greet me, and lead me to a table overlooking the greenery of Louis XVI Square. The dining room is half-full and yet still quiet, furnished in shades of cream and taupe. The walls are decorated by a series of abstract black strokes, reminiscent more of Chinese calligraphy than the softer South Korean minimalism, but this is perhaps an artistic choice. I am given a jasmine-scented towel with which I can wipe my hands, and a glass of Krug Grande Cuvée. At the friendly server’s recommendation, I choose the nineteen-course tasting menu._

_Unfortunately this introduction is the high point of the evening. The first course is a gel ‘spherification’ meant to evoke the taste of kimchi. It does not. Instead it fills the mouth with a puff of gochugaru and faintly acidic cabbage. I cannot imagine a technique less suited for expressing all the complexity and texture of kimchi._

_From there it gets worse. Each course seems to be focused only on removing the signature identity of a Korean dish and transplanting what is left onto French cuisine. The galbi jjim, usually a dish of tender beef shortrib boiled then simmered in a salty-sweet ganjang sauce, is transformed instead into a bleak sous vide steak with the sauce poured over. Many times during the meal I am amazed by the sheer absurdity of the dishes. A ‘reverse bibimbap’ sans rice comes with hard-boiled egg cut into chunks and seasoned with gochujang, and is topped by meekly sautéed vegetables in a puree meant perhaps to be reminiscent of egg yolk. The Nashi pear marinated in soy sauce, honey, and sesame oil is passable, though not quite the replacement for bulgogi that it claims to be. A san-nakji dish, usually raw octopus still twitching on the plate, has stopped moving by the time it is set in front of me. The server is full of apologies- there had been a miscommunication in the kitchen, and it had been brought out too late, though they could make a new one if I’d like? I examine the limp octopus, sitting on top of a now-soggy sesame wafer. The server, seeing my expression, whisks it away and returns with an equally grey but now spasming portion. Afterward comes a strikingly small portion of seared halibut sitting in a pool of tepid chueo-tang, paired with a Cabernet Sauvignon in what seems to be an attempt to entirely eradicate my taste buds before the next course. This is the moment at which I begin to look forward to seeing the exorbitant bill._

_There are two redeeming factors at Saenghwal- the service, which is polite and brisk, and the desserts. One solitary standout is a French interpretation of hotteok pancakes, a flaky pastry in the style of a chausson aux pommes. The filling, a masterwork of melted brown sugar and chopped peanuts infused with an unusual note of maple, is an unexpected gift after sixteen disheartening courses. The patbingsu that follows, a pile of milky shaved ice topped with red beans, is underwhelming in comparison but still adequate._

_Overall the dishes at Saenghwal lack a common theme other than the abuse of the diner’s palate. The presentation is sloppy and crowded- each plate is a messy contrast of flavour and texture that instead of highlighting both French and Korean cuisine manages to downplay both. It rejects the old adage ‘less is more’ in a feverish effort to justify its €320 bill, and pays for it._

_When Coutanceau and Passard bring me the post-meal petits fours, I ask them where they studied in South Korea. Passard tells me that he trained under Chef Yim Jung-sik in Seoul for four years. Then Coutanceau at once answers all my unspoken questions with one cheerful confession- he has only been to South Korea once. I am dumbfounded. How long? Three weeks, he responds._

_Before the bill comes, the server sets down a plate of the same pastries I had earlier admired. Compliments of the kitchen, he says. I approximate the price and add it to the tip._

_The name ‘Saenghwal’ translates to ‘life’, a detail that Coutanceau and Passard seem to have forgotten. Perhaps the best summary I can offer of their current state of affairs is the octopus dish I alluded to earlier: an uncoordinated, unappetising effort at impressing their diners. Saenghwal is not a fusion restaurant, nor hardly even a Korean restaurant. It is an inconsequential foray into fusion cooking masquerading as haute cuisine. Unless Coutanceau and Passard plan to change that, they should limit themselves to pastries._

_For good Korean food, look no further than Soon, a nearby hole-in-the-wall restaurant on Rue Jean Mermoz. It is only ten-minutes' walk away, and your money will be far better spent._

Below the article was a postscript, almost an afterthought: ‘Michelin Star Counter’, and next to it, three empty stars.

“My God,” Marianne said.

“Brutal, right?”

Marianne nodded absentmindedly, scanning it again.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if all the staff fled for the hills,” Camille said. “Jesus. At least she liked the pastry.”

The pastry. Brown sugar, peanuts. Maple butter laid between the sheets of the pastry, folded fifty times. Chausson aux pommes. Marianne frowned for a moment. “That’s mine.”

“What?”

“The pastry recipe. It’s mine.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I developed it for L’érable, back when Laurent was sous chef.”

Camille and Antoine looked at each other, wide-eyed, then back at Marianne.

“What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Nothing. Give it back, I’m going to show Mathilde.”

Marianne hesitated, eyes lingering on the paper. _A masterwork,_ she read again. _An unexpected gift_.

“Aren’t you supposed to be on the rooftop garden?”

“Right.” She tore her gaze from the paper and handed it back. “I’m going. I think the cardoons are ready for harvest.”

“Ooh, that’s good,” Camille said appreciatively.

Antoine wrinkled his nose. “What the fuck is a cardoon?”

“You don’t know what a cardoon is?”

“Sue me, I don’t get paid to do vegetables.”

“What _do_ you get paid for?”

“Being better than you.”

“Kiss my rosy asscheek, Antoine.”

“I’m leaving,” Marianne announced, and didn’t stick around to be ignored.

Laurent called her at 14.20, while she was hauling a crate of apricots down from the rooftop gardens. She propped the crate up against her hip for a moment to tuck the phone between her ear and her shoulder, and continued on.

“Bonjour, Marianne,” said Laurent. He sounded depressed, though that was to be expected.

“Bonjour, Laurent. Ça va?”

He sighed over the phone. “What do you think?”

Marianne made a sympathetic face even though he couldn’t see it, and nodded to David in thanks for holding the door. “I saw the review.”

“I figured you would have.”

“Désolée, man.”

“There are worse things, right?”

Marianne nodded for a moment before realising that it was a question. “Sure. It could have been a health inspector.”

He made a pitiful attempt at a laugh. “That’s true.”

“She liked a few of the dishes.” Marianne set the crate down on her station and started checking the apricots for worms.

“ _Your_ pastry.”

“And the Nashi pear.”

“She said it was passable.”

Marianne found a rotten apricot, made a face, and tossed it in her compost bin. “That’s critic-speak for good.”

“And the wine pairing! Fuck. I’m going to fire my sommelier.”

“Yes, that was stupid. Even I know you don’t do reds with _chueo-tang_.”

“He said it was avant-garde.”

“Everything’s avant-garde if it’s marketed well enough.” Marianne finished sorting and slid the crate under her station. “Your restaurant isn’t shit.”

“Does it even matter?”

At that Marianne paused. She had never heard Laurent talk like that- he was a little bizarre, sure, but always optimistic. “Of course,” she said. “Of course it matters. It’s a review, Laurent. It’s not like she’s the definition of good taste.”

“She might as well be.” He let out a noise that sounded suspiciously like a sniffle, and cleared his throat. “Do you want to design me a new dessert menu?”

“Not a chance," she said, kindly.

“Ah, well. All the foodie blogs are saying she’s doing you next.”

“Really?”

“Because she’s gone twice already.”

“Three times,” Marianne corrected.

“Three times? Really? Well, good luck.”

“Thanks, Laurent. Feel better.”

“I’ll try.”

“Critics are the worst, hm?”

He laughed, sort of. “Yeah. Bye.”

“Bye.”

When he hung up Marianne looked at the phone for a little while. “Antoine,” she said.

“What?”

“Can I read that review again?”

“Sure.” He handed it over.

This time Marianne ignored the part about the pastry, and read everything else. The review had been harsh, unduly so. Marianne had never been to Saenghwal but she knew Laurent and she knew Laurent’s cooking, and surely it wasn’t as bad as Nicollier had made it out to be.

Nicollier. Marianne frowned, and read it again. _The abuse of the diner’s palate. An inconsequential foray into fusion cooking._ That- that was too much. It was just what Marianne had expected from her, really. Pretentious, high-horse know-it-all. What right did she have to say that, anyways? Nicollier wanted an interview, she wanted honesty, she wanted a performance. She wanted Marianne to put on a show, and she wanted to judge.

With gritted teeth Marianne pressed the intercom button.

“Hello?”

“Sophie?”

“Hi, Marianne. What do you need?”

“Send Nicollier a note for me.”

“Oh!” There was the faint sound of something shuffling around. “She already wrote back. She said, let me pull it up, she said, I look forward to-“

“Tell her no.”

Sophie paused. “What?”

“Tell her no. I’ve changed my mind.”

“Marianne- you-“

“Did you read the review?”

“The review of Saenghwal? Yes, I did. Is that why?”

“Yes.” Marianne stared at the newspaper. _Héloïse Nicollier_ on the byline. The empty Michelin stars smiling up at her. “That’s why.”

“Okay,” Sophie said, her tone perfectly neutral, and the intercom clicked out.

Marianne refused to feel any sort of remorse. Even the thought of Nicollier lingering in the doorway, Nicollier in the wine cellar- that was hardly the look of someone who- no. No. Marianne set the newspaper aside and went back to slicing the apricots.


	9. main course three

At 14.32 that day David, very hesitantly, said, "Marianne?"

“Yes, David?”

“I’d like to show you a dish,” he said, which was a nice surprise. He was still a little stilted with her, even though by now he was used to the pandemonium of the kitchens, and it was rare that he asked her to try a dish before first going to Camille or Mathilde.

“Oh, of course,” Marianne said, pleased, and clapped twice to get the flour off her hands. She went over to his station and peered curiously at the two bowls of prawns set side-by-side.

“This is the base.” David held up a Dénia prawn, cooked to bright red, with the head off and the shell still on. He reached out, and, from the bowl next to it, picked up an exactly identical prawn. “And this is the final product.”

“A change in filling?”

“Yes.” He set the second prawn in Marianne’s open palm. “Boiled for a few minutes, shocked in ice water. Extract the meat, and cook it with a little pearl barley.”

Marianne closed her teeth around the shell and extracted the contents with two fingers pinched around the tail. Excellent- a little spicy, a touch of thyme, a dash of tomato sauce, perhaps a little dry but that could be easily remedied.

“It’s lovely,” she said, sincerely. “Is that sazon?”

“Yeah, sazon." He relaxed a little. “It’s a variation on _asopao de camarones,_ so there’s a little _sofrito_ too.”

“I see. Have you thought about seasoning the shell?”

“There’s a little cilantro and olive oil on the inside.”

“And on the outside?”

“Nothing yet.” He was already reaching for his recipe notebook. “Lemon and thyme?”

“Try it. And a little more broth in the barley mix." She nodded in appreciation. "Would you mind giving me your _asopao_ recipe?”

“Oh, sure,” David said, looking delighted. “It’s my mom’s, though, so- you know-“

“Keep it a secret.”

“Right.”

Marianne nodded and proffered up her precious journal. David scribbled down the recipe, and returned it to her with a rare smile. She went back to her station feeling slightly better- ground had been made, and the day wasn't over yet.

The next morning Marianne unlocked the kitchens in a nice enough mood. Sunday mornings were usually all right, as long as no funny business happened with the reservations. The caviar shipment was on time, and of good quality. And the _orujo_ was due to arrive tomorrow, which meant that Camille would lose her eyebrows again and Mathilde would be in a sunny mood- two very attractive features.

Camille and David came in soon after, David bearing a long-suffering expression and an enormous thermos of coffee.

“Cardoons,” Camille crooned, off-key. “My cardoons, my lovelies. Oh, hello, Marianne.”

“Good morning, Camille, David. Did you see the pomelos?” She held one up, and Camille made appropriately admiring noises at it. “A little honey, maybe some lemongrass. What do you think?”

“Perfection in a bite,” Camille said, and darted over to smack an obnoxious kiss on Marianne’s cheek. She disappeared in a whirlwind of limbs, and shouted, “Day-vid, your sea monsters are on my station again!”

“They’re sea urchins,” David sighed, and went to go rescue them.

“My God.” Something squelched- not a good sign. “Is that what the inside looks like?”

“It’s a delicacy.”

“It smells like shit.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

There was a brief lull in the bickering. Marianne started slicing the pomelos in quick precise cuts, and was halfway through the third (a new record) before-

“Oh, would you look at the time,” Camille said, loudly. “David! Wow. Would you look at the time!”

“What? It’s seven o’clock.”

“Which means it’s time to go over there.”

“Over where?”

There was the brief din of Camille conferring with someone, always made recognisable by the total lack of effort put into whispering.

“Oh, I see,” David said, after a few seconds. “Okay. Let’s go check the caviar.”

It was really getting ridiculous now. “I’ve already checked the caviar,” Marianne cut in.

“Then we’ll check the lobsters.” Camille pushed David along toward the door to the freezer. “Yay, lobsters. Aren’t they fun? Like water scorpions.”

“They’re _crustaceans_.”

“Thank you, David,” said Marianne, who was about to say the same thing. “And why are you going in the freezer? The lobsters are- oh.”

Nicollier was wearing the grey pants again. Her hair was up as always, and she was standing perfectly still and stiff in the entryway, as if her slightest movement would cause the kitchen to collapse. It was difficult to look at her.

“I would like to know why you cancelled,” she said.

Succinct, straightforward, direct. Marianne set down her knife. “I didn’t want to do the interview.”

“Why not?”

Well, that was the golden question, wasn’t it? “I didn’t want to.”

“You worked with Passard,” Nicollier said. Not accusingly, but Marianne bristled nonetheless.

“I did.”

“You read my review, then."

Marianne's silence was answer enough.

“Is that why?” Nicollier prompted.

“It was a harsh review,” Marianne said, without looking at her.

“Yes.”

“Unduly harsh.”

“It was deserved.”

Marianne let out an incredulous huff and picked up the nearest pomelo, slicing it in half with a vicious motion of the knife. She wouldn’t even dignify that with a response.

“When a restaurant labels itself a fusion restaurant,” Nicollier said after a moment, sounding slightly put out, “it sets for itself an expectation. To marry the two cuisines while maintaining the quality of both, and to do it well. _Saenghwal_ did neither.”

Marianne turned to her then, dropping the knife with a clatter. “And what makes you the great appraiser?”

“Experience. A well-developed palate. An objective eye.”

“I would hardly say you’re objective.”

Nicollier folded her arms, impassive. Marianne hated that pretentious fucking face like nothing else in the world.

“And,” Marianne continued, returning her gaze to the pomelo and pitching up her voice as if to compensate for Nicollier’s lack of sentiment, “it’s not as if you’re the gold standard of taste.” She punctuated these last few words with the clack of the knife against the cutting board.

There was the sound of footsteps, each one louder than the last. Then Nicollier said, closer than Marianne had expected, “I don’t need to prove my opinion to you.”

Marianne looked up. Nicollier’s arms were crossed over each other, as if she was defending herself from some unseen foe; she was inscrutable, dispassionate, every inch the critic.

“I know,” she said.

“But.” Nicollier’s fingers tapped out a rhythm on her other arm. “I would like to.”

_What?_

“You what?”

“I’m asking you to go to _Saenghwal_ ,” Nicollier said, very quickly. “For an early dinner service. I know you have a busy schedule- I’m busy, too,” she added, and flushed slightly. “And I’m not asking you to agree with me.”

“I don’t,” Marianne said instinctually, too surprised to say anything else. _What was happening?_

“I know.”

“You-“ Marianne stopped, and tried to process. “You want me to review _Saenghwal_?”

“Not review it. Just form an opinion.”

And how was she supposed to do that having already read Nicollier’s review, and having already made a vow to vehemently disagree with everything she said? “What about objectivity?”

Nicollier shifted from foot to foot. “My review is already written.”

“Yes, I know,” Marianne said patiently. “I read it.”

“Not that review.”

And there it was. The acknowledgment. The first time either of them had mentioned the elephant in the room. Marianne looked at Nicollier- her gaze steady and hopeful, arms still crossed, gratifyingly awkward- and wanted, very badly, to ask what she had written. It would be easy enough, and Nicollier would probably tell her. She would know soon enough, after all. What was a couple of days in the grand scheme of things?

But.

It was nice, sort of, not to know. Easier to pretend that Nicollier wasn’t really a critic.

Which begged the question- if Marianne didn’t think of her as a critic, what the hell was she thinking of her as?

“I understand if,” Nicollier began haltingly, and Marianne realised that she had been staring at her in silence for likely upwards of what was considered a polite amount of time.

“Okay,” she said. It was definitely an interruption and also very rude but it was good to shut down that train of thought before anything too big came of it. “I’ll go to _Saenghwal._ ”

“You will?”

“Don’t sound so surprised,” Marianne snapped, and peeled the pomelo even though she wasn’t supposed to according to her own recipe. “Yes, I’ll go. What’s today, a Sunday? Tomorrow, then. At 14.15 sharp.”

“Okay.”

“And I have to be back at 15.45.”

“Okay.”

“Stop agreeing with me,” Marianne said irritably, and received no response. When she looked up Nicollier was smiling, very slightly.

“Okay,” she said, a third time.

“Are you going to make the reservation or should I?”

Nicollier’s arms uncrossed. She stared at Marianne for a moment, looking distinctly surprised.

“What?” Marianne asked, unnerved.

“I'm not sure if they’ll want to hear from me.”

Ah. “I’ll do it, then.”

“You’ll make the reservation?”

“Yes.”

“For both of us?”

Did Nicollier have any brain at all up there? “Yes.”

“Okay,” Nicollier said after a moment, smiling a little more now. Why, Marianne couldn’t tell. “14.15 tomorrow?”

“Don’t be late.”

“I’m never late.” Nicollier held out her hand. Marianne wiped her hand off on the towel thrown over her shoulder, and took it. They shook hands for only slightly longer than normal this time before Marianne, discomfited and still a little off-balance, dropped first.

“Goodbye,” Marianne said, somewhat perfunctorily considering that Nicollier was already practically at the door.

“Goodbye.” Nicollier took a few steps back, offered a bizarre little dip that might have been a bow if she was an eighteenth-century courtier, and disappeared out of the kitchens.

David emerged from the freezer the second the door clicked shut. It would have been merely a suspicious coincidence of timing had Camille not followed him out of the freezer, grinning so wide that Marianne feared for her sanity.

“Hi, Marianne,” David said. “We were just separating out the pasteurised mixtures.”

“Thank you, David,” Marianne said, choosing to ignore Camille. “That’s very kind of you. I’m going up to the greenhouse now.”

Marianne dialed Laurent’s number as she climbed the stairs to the rooftop. After a few rings- by which time she was already sprinkling the nasturtiums with the tiny watering can- he picked up.

“Bonjour, Marianne.”

“Bonjour, Laurent. How are you feeling?”

“Still shit.”

Marianne winced. “Business doing okay?”

“Dwindling by the day.”

Any leftover goodwill toward Nicollier began to fade. “Well. Do you mind if I swing by tomorrow? For an early dinner.”

“Oh, really?” He perked up. “Sure! What time are you thinking?”

“14.15 to 15.45.”

“That’s a late lunch, Marianne.”

“I know, I know. It’s all the free time I have.”

“Okay. I’ll make an exception.” Laurent scribbled something down on the other end. “14.15? Arnaud won’t be here, but I will. I’ll keep some of the guys from lunch service or something.”

“Thank you.”

He whistled. “The nineteen-course?”

“If you can manage it.”

“Sure. Just you?”

“Two,” Marianne said. She paused, then elected not to mention who she would be bringing.

“Nineteen-course for both?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, perfect.”

“Thanks, Laurent.”

“No problem. Bye, Marianne.”

“Bye.”

“It’s going to be good to catch up,” he said, sincerely, and hung up.

Marianne sighed, pocketing the phone and returning her attention to the basil. She was going to have a lot of explaining to do.


	10. lime sorbet

Marianne began to feel the first stirrings of guilt around 10.17. None of the dining room napkins were holding their shape, almost all the apricots she had collected were just slightly mushy, and _someone_ had turned up the heat of the oven so her little cornbreads had gone a horrid shit brown colour. And Laurent was going to be upset. Marianne was hardly one for superstition but it all seemed like a very precise coincidence.

She went into the kitchens, which were surprisingly quiet. Camille had her tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth, and she was very carefully ladling the cardoon soup into the last of the little ramekins. There was an enormous stack of black bass beside the grill at David’s station, which he was portioning out in quick efficient cuts. Next to him Mathilde was doing something complicated with black garlic and lime; every so often she offered him a spoonful, and each time it was greeted with rapturous appreciation.

Marianne leaned back against the countertop and considered her predicament. Her gaze, wandering around the kitchen, landed on Antoine, who was methodically slicing one of the not-mushy apricots. He wasn’t the _worst_ person to ask for advice- well, he was, but everyone else was busy.

“Antoine,” she said.

“Hm?”

“I have a hypothetical for you.”

He lifted the lid off the _tagine_ and inspected its contents with a critical eye. Marianne could only pray he wasn’t salting the meat _in_ the pot. “Not a hypothetical that involves tempeh, I hope.”

“Say that I was planning on going to _Saenghwal.”_

“Could be fun. I don’t know when you’d go, though, you don’t have any time. Bring me back one of those gel kimchi things.”

“With Nicollier _._ ”

Antoine dropped the lid.

Or, rather, he set it down, very loudly. “You’re doing _what_?”

Marianne winced and averted her eyes. “Tomorrow. At 14.15.”

“You’re not serious. Really?” He turned, and called, “Camille!”

“What?” Camille shouted back.

“Antoine, don’t-“

“Marianne’s going to _Saenghwal_ with Nicollier!”

“She’s _what_?”

“Okay, that information was not meant to be shared,” Marianne snapped, and was ignored.

“Is she really? Marianne, you sly fox, you!”

Well. If she was going to ask Antoine, she might as well ask everyone. They would all know before lunch service was over, anyways. “Here’s the issue.”

“I see no issues,” Camille said gaily. “I only see an absolutely _golden_ opportunity to-“

“Here’s the issue,” Marianne repeated, louder. “I already booked a table with Laurent.”

“Oh right, Passard,” Camille said, her previous thought thankfully diverted. “How did he take it? Not well, I assume.”

Marianne hesitated a beat too long.

“You didn’t tell him,” Antoine said, in the tone that meant he knew he was right but was praying he would be proved wrong. “You didn’t tell him you were bringing Nicollier.”

“No,” Mathilde sighed, from where she was stirring her pot.

“Yes,” Marianne confirmed.

There was a collective pause where everyone processed this.

“Why didn’t you tell him?” Mathilde asked, very calmly.

“I don’t know, I didn’t know how to-“

Antoine gaped. “Marianne, she _ripped_ him apart-“

“Just _eviscerated_ him-“

“Went for the fucking loins-“

“The _loins_ , Antoine, the fucking what-“

“It’s a culinary term, you wouldn’t understand-“

“Shut up, that lamb looks like you vomited it up-“

“Okay, okay, that’s enough.” Marianne pressed two fingers to her temples. “Any suggestions as to what I should do now?”

“Just tell Nicollier not to come,” Antoine said.

Camille was already shaking her head. “She can’t do that, she already booked for two. No one likes a no-show.”

Marianne wondered if a good whack to the head might dispel the ache currently building up at the bridge of her nose. At the very least she wouldn’t have to hear this anymore. “Thirty minutes to lunch service,” she said. “Any final thoughts?”

“Call him,” Mathilde said.

Marianne looked around. They all nodded in agreement.

Damn.

The very instant lunch service ended Marianne was shooed unceremoniously out of the kitchens. It was a nice day out, one of those rare light frosts on the tail end of winter. The beets would have to be uprooted soon, but before then the beet greens could be trimmed off and used as garnish. Maybe the spring onions, too.

Okay. There was no putting it off any longer.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Laurent.”

“Oh, Marianne! What’s up?”

“I’m just calling about the guest I’m bringing.” Christ, she sounded like a telemarketer. Antoine emerged from the kitchens, smiled unsympathetically, and pulled out a cigarette. ‘Light,’ he mouthed, patting his empty pockets. Marianne shook her head.

“Oh, right, your guest,” Laurent said cheerfully. Something crinkled, tinny over the phone- the flip of a notepad, probably. “Dietary restrictions or something?”

“No, it’s not about that.” Antoine held up a finger in inspiration and disappeared back inside.

“Then what are you calling for?”

“Just to-“ Antoine re-emerged with a triumphant smile and a- was that a _butane torch_? “Sorry, one moment.” She covered the mouthpiece. “Are you fucking insane?”

“I think it’ll work.”

“Is that Antoine?” Laurent asked, perking up. “Tell Antoine hello!”

“Laurent says don’t you _dare-_ ”

Antoine pulled the trigger. With a _whoosh_ a stream of blue flame shot out, hot enough that Marianne could feel it from a few feet away. She made a sound- not a _yelp_ , just a sound of surprise- and jumped away, toward the relative safety of Mathilde’s parked car. “What the hell is wrong with you!”

“What’s going on? What are you guys doing?”

“Violating kitchen safety codes,” Marianne told him, and confiscated the torch. Antoine rolled his eyes and stumped back inside, probably to get a lighter from David. “Sorry about that. What were we talking about?”

“Your mysterious guest. Should I be guessing? Is it Camille? Mathilde?”

“Laurent,” Marianne began, then paused. How to tell him? “She’s not a friend.”

“Okay,” he said slowly. “Are you- wait." He perked up. "You’re seeing someone?”

Marianne very nearly choked on her own tongue. _Seeing someone!_ As if she would _ever_ \- with _Nicollier_ of all people- not that Nicollier was the worst possible option but she was horribly pretentious and not nearly as good-looking as Camille seemed to think, not to mention a _critic_ , and that actually did make her the worst possible option, and besides she was hardly even tolerable on a good day anyway so it wasn’t as if Marianne would-

“Because I can definitely find some roses,” Laurent was continuing, in fact _had_ been continuing for several seconds, “if you-“

“No!” Marianne practically shouted. Apocalyptic visions of Nicollier’s name spelled out in rose petals danced before her eyes. At a slightly more normal volume she added, just to make it clear, “No roses. Hear me, Laurent? No fucking roses.”

David stuck his head out the door with a frown. ‘Is everything okay,’ he mouthed. Marianne gave him a weak nod and handed off the butane torch, still dumbfounded. _Seeing someone_?!

“Okay, jesus, no roses. It’s one of those complicated things, hm?”

“It’s not _complicated_.” Well, it was, but not in the way he meant. “I don’t- I’m not- it’s not like that.”

“Whatever you say,” Laurent said smugly. Marianne sensed that she was fighting a losing battle that she should, by the distinction of being _right,_ be winning. And Marianne very strongly disliked losing.

“It’s Nicollier,” she said.

“Pardon?”

“The other guest.”

There was a long pause. Then Laurent said, slightly queasily, “That’s not very funny.”

“It’s not a joke.”

“I don’t see how it could be _real_.”

“I disagreed with her review,” Marianne explained. “So I told her as much, and she wanted me to try it, and obviously she had to come too.”

“Don’t you dare use the word ‘obviously’ in that sentence,” Laurent snapped. He heaved out a sigh, and his voice went muffled, as if he was burying his head in his hands. “You’re- _involved_ \- with Nicollier?”

“No! When you say it like _that_ -“

“Marianne. You’re bringing Nicollier to my restaurant. Which she hates.”

“Hated.”

“Marianne-“

“Okay, Laurent,” Marianne interrupted, inspiration striking. “Here's what I think. You have to make a new menu from all those recipes you have squirrelled away. Then when she comes tomorrow you'll serve her a brand new set of dishes. No Coutanceau, right? Come on. I know you can do better than kimchi gel.”

Silence.

“You want me to use Héloïse Nicollier as my guinea pig,” Laurent said blankly.

Marianne winced. “Guinea pig is not a very generous way of putting it.” But he was considering it, so she pressed her advantage. “Right from the horse’s mouth, hm? No one else gets a top critic to review their menus before they’re even out.”

More silence, this time contemplative.

“I don’t know if I can do it by tomorrow,” Laurent said. But he was already thinking about it, and once he was thinking about it, it was as good as done. “I mean, I’d have to come up with a cohesive menu, and- nineteen courses, and I’d have to make doubles of each dish-“

“Oh, no, you don’t have to,” Marianne said hastily. “I’ll take the regular one. It’s a fixed menu, right?”

“Yes, it’s the same. I keep telling Arnaud to fix it, but-“ he sighed, sounding very aggravated- “he has this whole ego thing, about how it’s a work of art, and he won’t let me change it.”

“He’s an idiot,” Marianne said. “I’ll take that one, and you can make the new menu.”

“Is it okay if I pull dishes from the ten-course menu?”

Marianne snorted. “I don’t care. How many times did she go?”

“Just the once.”

“Then you’re fine.”

“You’re absolutely insane,” Laurent said, with feeling. “How do you know Nicollier, anyway?”

“I don’t.” Camille stuck her head out the door and waved, very excitedly. “Okay, I have to go. Bye, Laurent.”

“Bye,” he echoed, and Marianne hung up.

“You have to see this,” Camille said. She grabbed Marianne by the arm and pulled her back into the kitchens. At her station there was-

“What the hell is that?”

“I’m calling it the Taj Mahal.”

 _It_ was a small structure of interlocking yellow and purple ribbons, shaped like a bubble with a slightly pointy end. It actually did look quite like the Taj Mahal. Marianne crouched and inspected it from eye level. Probably about 10 cm tall, 8 cm in diameter. Each ribbon was laid under the one to its left, and over the one to its right. Upon a closer look the strips looked like- carrots?

“Okay, so I was looking at a carrot at the market,” Camille said, out-of-breath and practically vibrating with excitement, “and I was thinking, you know, most of the time when you’re trying to build the aesthetic of a dish it’s so annoying that it tapers off, you know. And then I thought, well, what if I could use that?”

“It’s beautiful. But what would you-“

“See, that’s the thing! I’m, I mean I don’t know yet but I’m caught between something like a yoghurt dip, you know, emphasise the crunch, or I’ll have to get Antoine to do a filling and then roast the whole thing with a honey glaze.”

“What am I doing?”

“Oh, good, you’re back,” Marianne said, and waved him over. “Look at this carrot thing Camille made.”

Antoine slithered over. His eyebrows went up. “Oh, wow. What’s it going with?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Maybe a _daal_? No, that wouldn’t work, too soupy.”

“But a curry, maybe,” Camille said, frowning. “I don’t know.”

Marianne snapped her fingers.

“What?”

“ _Zongzi_ ,” she said, and that was enough. Camille’s eyes went wide.

“Yes! _Zongzi_! Antoine, make yourself useful and go find some pork belly.”

Antoine was already at the refrigerators, hauling out an enormous cut of meat. “What’s the marinade?”

“Soy sauce, Shaoxing wine, ground white pepper, salt, and sugar,” Mathilde said from the other end of the kitchens.

“It’ll be pretty unconventional, but if I can tie it like a _zongzi_ -“ Camille threw her arms around Marianne and smacked a loud kiss to her ear. “It’s going to blow everyone’s tits off.”

“Language, please, Camille.”

“You’re such a fucking hypocrite,” Camille said affectionately, and bounced off to get the glutinous rice.

Marianne unlocked the kitchens the next morning at 6.30 sharp. Antoine arrived soon after, with a bleary curse at the light in the refrigerator.

“God fucking damn,” he mumbled. “Where the hell is my coffee?”

“I don’t know,” Marianne said, pushing a bowl of _xifan_ in his direction. “Camille might have had it yesterday for dinner.”

“Shit-for-brains.” Antoine leaned back against the counter and pulled his phone out. “She'll be up by now, right?"

Camille picked up immediately. “What, dickhead,” she shouted, loud enough that Marianne could hear it.

“You drank my coffee again!”

“Yeah, and? I was crashing. I’ll bring you another one, crankypants. Is Marianne there?”

“Good morning,” Marianne said.

“Antoine, put me on speakerphone. Marianne!”

“Yes?”

“What are you wearing?”

_What the fuck?_

“I don’t see how that’s pertinent,” Marianne said stiffly.

“Antoine, what’s she wearing?”

“Chef’s coat, apron, pants,” Antoine told her around a mouthful of _xifan_.

“What else?”

“Probably a tank top, I don’t know.”

“Okay,” Camille said thoughtfully. “Not bad.”

“When are you going to be here with my coffee?”

“Ten minutes.” And, before Antoine could say anything, “Bitch at me and it’ll be thirty.”

Antoine closed his mouth with great reluctance and glared at the phone.

“Bye,” Camille sang.

At 13.58 Sophie came into the kitchens at a near sprint and announced, in a loud stage whisper, “She’s here!”

“Who’s here?”

Nobody deigned to answer the question. Instead Marianne was forcibly stripped of her apron and bundled toward the door.

“What are you doing? Give that back!”

“ _Saenghwal_ , Marianne,” Camille said patiently. “Last customer left five minutes ago, you're fine. Chef’s coat off.”

Marianne sighed and unbuttoned it. Someone- Mathilde, maybe- pulled it off her shoulders.

“I don’t understand what all the fuss is about,” she said. “It’s just Laurent.”

Antoine snorted.

“What?”

“Nothing. This is what you’re wearing?”

Marianne looked down at herself. Tank top, chef’s cargo pants, sensible shoes. “What’s wrong with it?”

Antoine and Mathilde traded a look.

“It’ll do,” Mathilde said eventually, and opened the door to the dining room.

Nicollier was standing by the entrance, smiling politely at the servers who bustled in and out. She had a pair of sunglasses perched on top of her head, which was ridiculous given that the sun was barely out, and she was shifting a cap between her hands. When she saw Marianne she blinked, twice, and the cap stopped moving.

“Good afternoon,” she said, after a moment.

“Good afternoon,” Marianne returned.

“The weather is lovely today. Good for the beets. Do you grow beets?”

“I do.”

Nicollier nodded seriously. “They’ve been cropping up in a lot of menus.”

Was that a threat? Marianne narrowed her eyes, but she couldn’t quite make out Nicollier’s exact expression. They were sort of half-shouting at each other across the dining room and it was difficult to see her from here. Marianne decided to let that one go for the sake of civility. 

“Did you drive here?” she asked.

“No.”

“I’ll drive, then.”

“Okay.”

A long pause.

“Are you-?”

“No, I thought-“

“It’s out back.”

“Should I-“ Nicollier pointed in Marianne’s direction.

“Yes. Don’t mind the mess, service just ended.”

Antoine was crouched on the kitchen floor suspiciously close to the door, inspecting some of the pots stacked under Camille’s empty station. Next to him Camille was enthusiastically sharpening a paring knife. Marianne spared them a single unimpressed glance and went out the door with Nicollier at her heels.

Poor Laurent, she thought, and indulged in a brief flicker of self-pity. This was going to be a nightmare.


	11. interlude: saenghwal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> discerning readers might wonder at the use of 'harbinge' as a verb. please thank @Shorts84 for this gift.

Marianne was probably the only person in Paris who drove in a sane and reasonable manner. It was a point of pride for her, especially after all the times she had witnessed Antoine zoom across an intersection at mach speed hollering obscenities all the way. She used her turn signal. She didn’t hit pedestrians. She stayed in the general vicinity of the speed limit.

With that said, Marianne did the vast majority of her driving at five in the morning and eleven at night. Which meant that now? At 14.06 navigating through the huitième with all the late-lunch crowd spilling out into the streets?

It meant that even Nicollier- and Marianne maintained the fervent belief that Nicollier was the worst of the lot, there was no way she wasn’t a menace to public safety- even she had a white-knuckled grip on her seatbelt. She was doing her best to look sunny and unaffected but her sunglasses had slipped down and were tangled in her hair.

“Do you always drive like this?” she asked, sounding slightly pained.

“No. Of course not.”

“I think you are a-“ Marianne applied a generous amount of pressure to the brake and Nicollier lurched forward in her seat, the sunglasses coming dangerously close to dangling off her head. “I think perhaps I should have been the one to drive.”

Marianne scoffed, semi-politely. “I don’t go around Paris in the daytime,” she said. "Precisely for-" she indicated the mess of cars and pedestrians- "this reason."

“I see. Do you spend the whole day in the kitchens?”

“Mostly. I drive to the seafood market, and then I can walk to the farmer’s market and the fromagerie.” Some dick in a Venturi went whistling past, cutting her off, and Marianne withheld a few choice words. “Why do you ask?”

“No reason.”

Not that damn interview again. “Don’t go about thinking this is an interview,” Marianne warned.

“I’m not,” Nicollier said, with genuine surprise. “But now that you mention it-“

“No.”

“I would like to know why.”

“I told you already.” A vicious left turn and something clattered down in the boot. Probably the bicycles falling. If they were broken Antoine was going to be furious.

“You disagreed with my review.”

“I did,” Marianne said. And then, correcting herself, “I do.”

“Because-?”

“I thought it was unfair.”

“Was it?”

“The abuse of the diner’s palate,” Marianne said brusquely. “An inconsequential foray into fusion. Thousands of hours of work and some critic swans in just to call your food a pile of shit?” She slammed on the horn with a vengeance. “I think I have every right to be upset.”

“What would you prefer I do?”

“What?”

“You are upset with me for doing my job.” Nicollier shrugged, a stiff tiny motion. “So what am I meant to do?”

“I don’t know. Retire.”

They went down six streets in silence before Marianne felt guilty enough to elaborate.

“No one in the industry likes critics,” she said. Which was probably not the best way to mend bridges but it was honest, right, and Nicollier liked honesty. So she forged on. “It’s not about you, specifically. It’s the idea that someone- one person- can label the whole thing good or bad.”

“I don’t think of it as a label.”

“Don’t you? Someone like _you_ -“ she waved in Nicollier’s direction- “writes one bad review and it’s up there forever. They could completely remodel and it still might not be enough.”

That hung there between them for a long moment.

“Anyways,” Marianne said, suddenly glad that they weren’t facing each other. “Laurent changed his menu. So you’ll have a new set of courses.”

“Oh, good,” Nicollier said, in a tone that said the opposite.

Marianne’s blood boiled. _God_ she hated when Nicollier did that. “You don’t have to sound so apprehensive,” she snapped.

“Am I meant to be looking forward to it?”

“Yes. I’m telling you it’s going to be good.”

Nicollier sat up straight. “Are you,” she said, like a hound smelling blood.

Rash? Yes. But if this was the hill Marianne was going to die on, then so be it. “I am.”

“Shall we make a bet, then?”

“I don’t make bets.”

They sat at the stoplight in silence for another minute.

Damn her. Marianne sighed, disgruntled. “What’s the bet?”

Nicollier’s mouth ticked up at the side. But other than that there was no sign of triumph. “If my review was accurate,” she said, “you’ll give me the interview.”

“That’s idiotic. I could easily just lie.”

“I don’t think you will.”

Well, that was the thing. She wouldn’t. Marianne frowned, irritated at having been read so easily, and stepped on the gas.

“And if I’m right?”

“About Passard’s new menu?” Nicollier shrugged. “Something equivalent to the interview, I imagine.”

Marianne hmphed and considered the situation.

The first point- was she willing to do the interview? Well, she had been before, so it couldn’t be all that objectionable. And Nicollier wasn’t _that_ bad, at least when she wasn’t levying criticism against Marianne’s colleagues. (And Marianne, said a small voice at the back of her head. Which she chose to ignore for the time being.)

So the interview was no more daunting than the prospect of Nicollier being right. Marianne could handle that. Second point- if Laurent pulled through,what would Marianne ask of her?

What _could_ Marianne ask for? What did Nicollier even do all day? Marianne glanced over at her- sunglasses atop her head, fiddling with the cap- and began a mental list. Shopping, probably. Going to the tailor. Getting things monogrammed. Eating out. Eating out at _restaurants_ , specifically. Memorising wine lists. Spending money. Writing reviews. Memorising more wines. Bothering chefs. Spending-

Hang on.

That was it. That was it, exactly. Efficient and practical, _and_ it saved Marianne from dealing with a whole load of bullshit. And any bullshit-alleviator was good in Marianne's books.

“Make me a wine pairing.”

“Hm?”

“If Laurent’s new menu lives up to your _exacting_ standards,” Marianne said, patiently, “you’ll design me a wine pairing.”

Nicollier looked surprised for a second. Then it melted into a tiny smile.

“Very well,” she said.

They came to a (somewhat screeching) halt outside a tall modern building on Rue d’Anjou, just in front of an empty parking space. A few cars crept past, but only one held Marianne's attention. There, in the rearview mirror- a Bugatti, very quickly approaching. Evidently with the aim of taking the very spot that Marianne was very clearly about to back into.

“Excuse me,” Marianne said, preoccupied, and braced a hand on the edge of Nicollier’s seat. Over her shoulder the Bugatti loomed, astonishingly hideous for such an expensive car. She gave it a sickeningly sweet smile through the rear window and reversed neatly into the spot.

There was a brief moment where it sunk in. Then the Bugatti laid on its horn and zoomed away. Bastard. Even the engine sounded satisfied when Marianne turned it off.

“Shall we?” Marianne asked.

Nicollier didn’t respond. When Marianne looked over at her, thinking perhaps she had gotten the wits knocked out of her, she was- well. Staring. Out of some competitive instinct Marianne stared back, which meant now they were just sitting there staring at each other. She was on the verge of saying something when Nicollier jolted back to life, turned faintly pink, and leapt out of the car at speed.

By the time Marianne found her on the footpath Nicollier was back to her normal self. She had the brim of the cap pulled down and the sunglasses on. It was more discomfiting than Marianne had expected, not being able to see her face. Though really it was a relief considering how irritating her face was. Also her cap was stupid.

When they reached the door it opened, and Laurent- tall and gangly, paler than ever- was on the other side.

“Marianne,” he said warmly. And then, less warmly, “Ms. Nicollier.”

“Sorry, we’re late,” Marianne said, and gave him a firm handshake to dispel some of the nerves. “Lead the way.”

He took them through a clean modern lobby, to the elevators, up to the fifth floor, and out into a spacious dining room with afternoon light pouring through the window. Their table was by the window, overlooking the square. Unfortunately the seats were facing each other, which now that Marianne thought about it was obvious- how else would you seat two people- but put them face-to-face and much closer together than Marianne had expected.

“I understand you’ll be serving two separate menus,” Nicollier said. The cap was off, thank God, and the sunglasses were being neatly folded and tucked away. Marianne saw the very moment that one of the staff recognised her- immediately he made a beeline for the other servers. Oh, well. Nicollier probably already knew to look for spit on the plate.

“Yes, that’s right. This-“ a friendly server materialised- “is Dominique. She’ll be your server for today. The new menu includes a tea pairing, which Min-“ another server trundled in a tea cart- “will prepare according to _darye_.”

That was good- no wine pairing meant less opportunity for snobbery. And Nicollier seemed interested, nodding every so often as Laurent went on about tea leaves and types of ceramic. Marianne usually indulged his nervous rambling but he had already texted her about every tiny detail and they were on a tight schedule. After about a minute he finally caught her pointed look and excused himself.

“We’ll be starting off with the classic _panyaro_ tea,” Min said. There was some very peaceful clinking from her little station, which had been wheeled over to rest beside Nicollier’s seat. The silence was broken by an occasional question from Nicollier- “Half full and then three-quarters? Why is that?” or “Boseong, I see. And the repetition?”- and then a detailed response. Marianne was thankfully ignored throughout all of this, and she passed the time as always by thinking about tomorrow's menu. If Mathilde was doing a _queimada_ base for dessert then the rice pudding would have to be changed. A foam _horchata_ over fruit? No, too predictable. Maybe a _horchata_ whipped into cream, or a sticky rice variation, or a mochi. Or something else, with a peanut base or a-

“Your first course,” Dominique chirped, and Marianne startled upon finding a plate set in front of her.

“Thank you,” she said. Though upon looking at it she wasn’t sure whether the thing in front of her warranted a ‘thank you’. It was small, globular, transparent, and remarkably unappealing.

“This is the kimchi gel spherification," Dominique said, apologetically. "I’m sure you’re familiar with it, but if you have any questions I’ll do my best to answer them.”

“None for now, thank you.”

Dominique nodded briskly and vanished. This left Marianne to stare bleakly at the clear little sphere, which wobbled when prodded with the tip of a chopstick. It was only now dawning on her that she would have to eat all _nineteen_ of these courses, and she hadn’t even bothered finding a separate lunch.

From the other side of the table there was the unmistakeable sound of subdued amusement. Upon being caught the guilty party immediately returned to inspecting her assortment of tiny beautiful dishes. Marianne gave her a baleful stare, picked up the spoon, and shoved the thing in her mouth.

It burst. A stale puff of _gochugaru_ and- vinegar?- hit the back of Marianne’s throat and she barely restrained a cough, eyes watering at the effort. It tasted fucking _awful_.

“Is it to your liking?”

Marianne, with great dignity, did not respond. Instead she drained her glass of water, wiped her mouth with the edge of the serviette, and waited without anticipation for the next course. It wasn't long- two minutes and Dominique was back.

“I understand you’re on a tight schedule,” she said, “so we’ll keep the dishes cycling through. For you, raw oyster with ginger lemon gochujang, served cold, and for you, grilled Nashi pear marinated in soy sauce, honey, and sesame oil.”

That didn’t sound so bad. The presentation was odd, though. There was a single pale chunk of pear set off-center on the plate, surrounded by tapioca. And, beside it, a small rolled-up brown thing.

“If you don’t mind,” Marianne said, and pointed. “Do you know what that is?”

“Oh, yes. It’s the skin of the pear. Grilled and then peeled off.”

“I see. Why is it peeled off?”

“I believe to introduce a different texture to the dish,” said Dominique.

“Ah. Thank you.”

It wasn’t bad. Undistinguished, Marianne would say, but still edible. Though if they were using this to replace bulgogi then there was really no hope.

Why did that thought seem so familiar?

“Passable, isn’t it,” said Nicollier, with a tone that was very close to smug. Marianne huffed and ignored her.

For the next course Marianne was made to contend with a plate of various semi-green items.

“What is this,” she said, on the very edge of politeness.

Dominique smiled as if she was used to that sort of question. “It’s a dish that Chef Coutanceau calls 'textures of peas'. Those-“ pointing to a small pile of miserable little peas- “are done in a sous vide with vegetable stock, that’s-“ a streak of green that vaguely resembled pigeon shit- “a puree with ginger, that-“ something that looked like it had lived through a kitchen fire- “is a charred sugar snap pea brushed with _gochujang_ , and-“

“Okay, that’s enough,” Marianne said gloomily. Dominique gave a smart little nod and departed. Poor woman.

Up close the stuff was even more dismal. “This didn’t make it on your review?” she asked.

“No, it wasn’t a highlight.”

That could harbinge nothing but the grimmest of futures for Marianne’s taste buds. She gave Nicollier's bowl of glass noodles and bulgogi one last wistful look and with great reluctance began to eat.

It turned out ‘eat’ was not a word that could be applied to the snap pea, which crumbled upon contact with her teeth. Marianne rinsed the charcoal from her mouth and moved on to the sous vide peas. They weren’t _bad_. Well, they were undercooked, which was remarkable considering how difficult it was to undercook peas. And the vegetable stock had evidently been made exclusively with celery and thyme. But other than that they were tolerable, which was more than she could say for the rest of the dish.

The next bowl was brought out with something verging on an contrite expression, introduced as a ‘reverse bibimbap’, and deposited in front of Marianne without any further explanation.

“If you are so deeply concerned with the dishes I mentioned in my review,” Nicollier said, helpfully, “I believe that this course did make it on.”

She was eating some sort of daikon radish, stacked in a small tower above a pool of warm _doenjang guk_. Marianne sighed and plucked out one of the hardboiled egg pieces from beneath a limp sautéed cabbage leaf.

Thus followed a series of generally appalling courses. The bastardised nonsense they were calling _galbi jjim_ was alright for what it was, but the sauce had barely gotten through the sear on the steak. The fermented snails were horrifying. As a rule Marianne disliked eating things that were still moving and the _san-nakji_ was no exception. Halibut was nicely cooked, _chueo-tang_ was watery. Fermented shrimp brought an unpleasant slap of iodine. None of it could have reasonably been called ‘good’.

And all this while witnessing the parade of dishes brought in front of Nicollier? It was enough to make anyone weep. A whole velvet crab, the shell already split open, in a pool of clear mushroom broth. A steaming bowl of red-hot _yukgaejang_ , the beef so tender that Nicollier made a distractingly approving sound upon tasting it. A small crispy square of seafood _pajeon_ with cream cheese terrine. Gorgeous slivers of damson, so purple they were almost black. A small tofu cake, sweetened with red bean and sprinkled with black sesame seeds. Marianne stared miserably down at the pile of pickled carrots on her plate and considered giving up on the whole thing.

“Here,” Nicollier said.

When Marianne looked up there was a plate pushed halfway across the table. On it was a neat stack of seaweed rice balls.

“What?”

Nicollier tipped her head toward the plate.

“I’m fine,” Marianne said, probably very unconvincingly judging by the way Nicollier’s eyebrows went up. “No, really. Thank you.”

The dish stayed firmly in place. “You’re sure,” she asked.

“Well,” Marianne said, her resolve weakening by the second. “If you’re offering.”

It was much better than pickled carrot and _boribap_. The flavour was all ocean- seaweed and rice, topped with thinly sliced red chilli and filled with a combination of fermented shrimp and kelp. Presentation left something to be desired but it was simple and sharp and therefore fine by Marianne.

She had scarcely finished chewing when Dominique swept the dishes away, and returned with some monkfish dusted with _gochugaru_ and a writhing green mess of brassica. It was certainly not the worst thing yet but was unlikely to break any records.

Again Nicollier held out her plate, and this time Marianne took a chanterelle without quibbling. And a charred leek when Nicollier insisted. The whole thing was excellently seasoned and pulled off very nicely, though the leek had been cooked a little too long.

“The leek is overcooked,” Nicollier said. She was watching Marianne, her head tipped to the side.

“Good, though.”

“Yes. The char is well done. And it has something- almond, do you think?”

“In the chanterelles?” Marianne took another bite and thought for a moment. “Toasted almond, I think. And dried fish in the braise.”

Nicollier hummed in agreement. “Sardine?”

“That sounds right.” There was a moment where Marianne very nearly smiled at her- _smiled_ , at _Nicollier_ \- before remembering herself. She cleared her throat and went back to picking apart the brassica.

After yet another round of pickled mushrooms Dominique arrived bearing dessert- a familiar pastry, accompanied by a dollop of cream, and a dish of various ice creams.

“Oh,” Nicollier said, showing her first (and likely only) sign of interest in what was on Marianne’s plate. “The _chausson aux pommes_.”

“Half-and-half,” Marianne offered.

“Yes, please.”

Marianne cut the pastry lengthwise, careful not to let the filling crumble out, and transferred one precise half to Nicollier’s dish. It was already a somewhat awkward process given that she had to lean over the table, but the next part was even worse, mostly because when Nicollier reached over to transfer the half-scoops of ice cream Marianne was faced with a whole new dilemma. Which was- well. Not a dilemma, really. Just that Nicollier was wearing one of those horrible monogrammed polo shirts except the buttons at the top were undone which meant when she was leaning over like that- Marianne could- not that she was _looking_ , it was just, well. Visible. 

“Exquisite,” Nicollier said.

“What?”

“This.” She was holding the pastry between finger and thumb, and her eyes were closed. “I might have come back just for this.”

Someone had turned on the heating in the last few minutes, Marianne thought. Or maybe it was Min boiling even more water. Either way her face felt warm all of a sudden.

“There aren’t many modern French restaurants that serve desserts like this,” Nicollier continued. “Of course there are a hardy few who experiment with pastries, but rarely is it a simple endeavour. And yet-” she waved it, gently. “This. In the most unexpected of places.”

Marianne took a bite. Flaky, fresh, still a little warm. A little heavy on the maple butter but it was good nonetheless, and not greasy in the way these things could get. The peanuts were roughly-chopped and there were some chunks that could potentially be nasty on the teeth. Other than that nothing had changed.

“What do you think?”

“Not bad,” Marianne said.

Nicollier stared at her. It took a moment to recognise the emotion on her face. But she opened her mouth and Marianne, who was familiar with these things, immediately identified it as suppressed outrage.

“Not _bad_ ,” she repeated.

Marianne shrugged. “The peanuts aren’t finely chopped.”

“You’re serious?”

“Well, I wouldn’t serve it like that. And I think they missed a layer or two in the folding.”

“I expected you to disagree with me,” Nicollier said, sharply. “But-“ now clearly restraining herself from saying something much worse- “I will say I did not expect our opinions to diverge _here_.”

“Alright,” Marianne said, slightly amused. Was this really what got her so worked up? “I don’t think it’s God’s gift to patissiers. And it’s not perfect by any means. But sure. It’s good.”

Nicollier let out a sharp breath and withdrew into haughty silence. Good. Marianne preferred it like that anyway.

Once the table had been cleared and the frankly jawdropping check had been split Laurent emerged from the kitchens looking pale but very determined. He got to the edge of the table, folded his hands, and delivered the age-old question-

“How did you like your meal?”

“Never serve that again,” Marianne said bluntly.

“Thanks, Marianne."

“What can I say? I’m a connoisseur of honest feedback.” She tossed her napkin on the table and leaned back in her seat. “What did _you_ think?”

Nicollier held her gaze for a long moment. Then, without looking at Laurent, she said, “It was excellent.”

There was a palpable sense of relief. Like a string pulled tight and then let go. Laurent had the approval, the tunnel had a bright light at the end, and Marianne had a wine menu.

And Nicollier had an interview.

Damn.

They left soon after with everyone on much better terms than they had been before. Nicollier agreed in a very vague manner to send over some feedback, Laurent shot a few suspicious glances at Marianne and made a pointed comment about appropriate dining dress, and all in all Marianne felt much better about the whole thing.

When they got to the car Nicollier had hardly enough time to acquire a look of quiet horror before Marianne was accelerating off into traffic.

"Come over tomorrow," Marianne told her, over a flurry of honks. "If you're free, that is."

"I am. Does 14.00 suit you?"

“Yes, that's fine. We can-" she winced, imagining the chaos- "discuss the interview then."

"I look forward to it," Nicollier said. Sincerely.

When they got back to the kitchens Nicollier said, in an absurdly formal tone, "Thank you for lunching with me," and left before Marianne could respond.

It hadn't been that bad, Marianne thought, as she put on her chef's coat. _Enjoyed_ was a little too strong of a word but she wouldn't deny it was good to get out of the kitchen once in a while. Even if it was with a critic. She hummed a cheerful little tune and went back in for dinner prep.


	12. l'aperitif (mid-meal)

They leapt on Marianne the second she opened the door.

“Marianne!”

“What, sweet Jesus-“

“Lunch, how was it, how was she, did she- no shut up- pay for it?” There were more questions than that but Marianne heard only a garbled mess of words. Then Camille hushed Antoine with an impatient wave of the hand and asked, “Did you like it?”

“Lunch was bad, she was annoying, it was fine. Would you mind letting me through to my station?”

They frowned.

“That’s all you’re going to tell us?”

“It’s 16.00. So yes. Excuse me.”

Marianne ignored their complaints and went off to sort the gelato containers. There was work to be done.

Post-service arrived, stations were scrubbed down, dishes were cleaned and stacked away, and they gathered for the menu meeting.

“Young _pied-de-mouton_ and salted caramel popcorn,” Camille rattled off, scribbling as she went, “grilled carrot and toasted buckwheat with sheep’s yoghurt, and clay-baked white beetroot.”

Antoine hummed. “Just caramel?”

“Why, should I add walnuts or something? The mushroom is already sort of nutty. Spicy, too.”

“You might try a honeycomb?” David suggested.

“You mean a real honeycomb?”

He shook his head and made a puffing gesture with his hands, French running out.

“He means the kind with sodium bicarbonate,” Marianne said.

“Yeah, that one.”

“Oh.” Camille thought it over, then wrote a note in the margins. “It's already in the caramel, but I’ll test it out tomorrow, see if the texture works. Day-vid, go ahead.”

“Cold sea bream bruschetta on _casabe_ bread for the first. Like a salad? Then smoked mussels and slow-cooked apple peel in a _velouté_ , and seared sea cucumber with abalone butter.”

“ _Paua_ butter?” Mathilde shot to attention. “What are you using, the liver?”

“Yes. And a little _wakame_. I have a one-day and a two-day marinade for the meat.”

“What is that supposed to mean,” Antoine said suspiciously.

“Double abalone prep,” Mathilde said, with an infinitesimal note of glee.

There was a faint chorus of sighs. Camille hated shellfish and Antoine hated slimy things which meant that tomorrow there was bound to be complaining.

“Well, you heard the man,” Marianne said cheerfully. “Tomorrow, 14.00. I want everyone on abalone prep except Mathilde. Antoine?”

“ _Shimeji_ broth and poached chicken,” he said, underlining something in his notebook. “Yunnan lamb grilled then glazed with a pomegranate reduction. And then _merguez_ sausage over sweet couscous.”

“Lamb twice?”

Antoine considered his notes for a second, then sighed and crossed something out. “Cut the _merguez_ , I’ll do your cinnamon beef _kefta_ instead. Throw in some beet-green salad underneath.”

“And the dressing?” Mathilde asked. Antoine gave her a pleading look and she smiled. “Yes, alright. I’ll think of something.”

“The rest of the sauces-”

“Done. _Umeboshi_ , _pimentón_ , creamy rose harissa, the mussel-apple _velouté_ will be a fish stock of sorts, maybe the halibut from before. And the fenugreek salad dressing. Fruit-based, maybe? Or maple syrup.”

There were a few agreeable hums. Mathilde was rarely questioned, being widely considered to be some sort of higher culinary power. She had appeared one day like that English bear with the marmalade, tiny pot in hand. And she had never left. Marianne said her prayers every morning in her name.

“Okay, good. Anything else before desserts?”

“Yes, one more thing,” Mathilde said, with great satisfaction. “The _queimada.”_

Camille made a piteous sound and disappeared down behind David on the cot.

Right. The _orujo_ had come in today, which meant that soon they could make the _queimada_. It was one of the few things that was a group undertaking, partly due to the astonishing consistency of Camille’s eyebrow incidents but also because it was nice to sit around a fire and relax together. Marianne had some rare sentimental moments and the _queimada_ making was first and foremost.

“Let’s see,” Marianne said, and flipped to the little calendar near the back of her notebook. “Thursday?”

“Sure,” David agreed.

“Let’s push it back a little.”

“Why, do you have something planned?”

Camille’s eyes slid to the side. “Well-“

“Thursday, then.”

“But I have a date on Thursday!”

There was a brief moment of silence. Then Antoine’s head rotated ninety degrees and he said, in the tone of a man who had just seen a steak sprout wings, “You _what_.”

“Have a date.”

“How?” Marianne asked.

“When?” said Mathilde.

“Where?” That was David.

“Which idiot?” Antoine.

“Not all of us have shitty loveless lives,” Camille said cheerfully. “I mean, I don’t have time to really date but I do have time for a nice night. Especially if I’m only coming in at ten.”

“You do _not_ -“

“I do! A fun evening in.”

“You mean a hookup,” Antoine said.

Camille shrugged, which meant he was right. “Sue me, I like to have a good time.”

“Are you sleeping over?”

“Ah ah, personal questions. No, I want to go to the farmers’ market. Why? Do you want to drive me?”

“I’d rather chew rocks.”

“You mean your lamb _béarnaise_?”

Antoine yelped in offence and grabbed for the nearest wok. Luckily Marianne had possessed the forethought to remove all heavy pans from the vicinity and thus the only thing in reach was a tiny silicone spatula.

“That’s enough,” Marianne interrupted wearily. “ _Queimada_ for Thursday. Desserts are the custard _langues de chats_ , pineapple _tres leches_ , and the portrait. Good?”

“Good,” they chorused.

“Hands in. One, two-“

“Portrait,” said Antoine.

“Antoine!”

“Sorry, I can never-“

“One, two, three-“

“Portrait!”

And thus the day was concluded.

Marianne came in the next morning feeling cheerful. More apricots today, so ripe they were nearly falling off the branch. Citrus peels stripped off and put in the dehydrator to be turned into seasoning. Beet greens snipped for salads. Lunch passed, à la carte, only one dish sent back on the grounds that it was too spicy and Antoine (who had strong views on this subject) had to be restrained from spitting in it and sending it back out as it was. The man had ordered it ‘extra hot’, so Marianne could sympathise.

“Fucking Northerners,” Antoine seethed, once service had slipped into _petits fours_ and coffee. “Worse than-“ two hard _thwacks_ of the pestle against the mortar- “all the fucking Parisiens put together, and the Germans too.”

“What about the Brits?” asked Camille, who could never resist provocation.

Antoine jabbed the pestle in her direction and began his tirade, pausing every so often to toss a handful of spice into the pile of ground beef in front of him. Marianne watched a small cloud of red drift up above him and prayed that he wasn’t using the saffron. For some reason he kept it next to the paprika. Idiot.

14.00 approached rapidly and the instant Marianne’s timer went off she was directing everyone toward David’s station with a sinister sort of delight.

“You are going to hell for this,” Antoine said, fervently.

“Yes, I know. Pink or green gloves?”

“Pink.” He paused, squinted at the offerings. “No, green. Can I have one of both? Camille, you can take the others.”

“Hey, shithead, I want the left pink-”

“Okay, everyone,” said David, who by now had learned to just raise his volume. “First step is to sharpen your knives.”

“My knives are always sharp,” said Camille. She bumped her hip against Mathilde’s and winked. “Eh? Eh?”

“Next step,” David continued, over the groans, “is to pour that hot water over them. Leave it for a minute, until they’re all curled up out of the shell, and then clean the inside and take them out. Slide your knife around the inside of the shell. Be careful not to go too fast. Now use it to just pop-“ he demonstrated- “the abalone out of the shell.”

There was an appropriate chorus of oohs.

“If it all comes out and the shell is clean, you’ll have to first remove the liver. Be careful not to break it.” He sliced off the liver and the viscera, and slid all of it neatly to one side. “Save the shells for presentation. Now take a rough cloth and rub the sides until they’re white and all the dirt is gone. Then tenderising and a slow cook.”

Marianne nodded encouragingly. “Okay. So who do you want on what?”

“I’ll take shell decoration,” Antoine piped up.

“What! That’s an option?”

“Antoine and Camille on liver prep,” Marianne decided.

All protests were ignored no matter how vocal, and everyone was shepherded into place along David’s station. Marianne lifted the enormous jug of hot water- a gift from Chef Arora, the spout was an elephant’s trunk- and tipped it into the bowl of abalone.

“While we’re waiting,” David said, and handed some sea cucumbers over to Camille and Antoine, who recoiled. Marianne tuned them out in favour of watching the abalone furl and unfurl like ship’s-sails. There was something that could be done with that in presentation, she thought. An introduction of motion, a fluidity. Through sauce? Or a soup swirled and layered through with _kombu,_ like the effect of a barber’s pole. She would ask David about it.

“Ready now,” David called, and Marianne was just about to reach in when-

“Hello,” said a horribly familiar voice.

Marianne blinked.

She turned and there was Nicollier at the back door. No hat in sight, thank God. She was wearing yet another one of those horrible monogrammed polos, but this one was a very light blue. Today her pants were white. She looked as if she had been standing there for a while. 

“What-?”

Nicollier nodded to her watch. “14.00, you said.”

“For?”

“The interview.” She paused. “I believe.”

“The _interview_ -“ Antoine began but was cut off by a smack.

Marianne shook herself out of it and gave Nicollier a once-over. Well, a twice-over, technically. “I’m busy,” she said, with a nod to the abalone.

“Oh!” Camille perked up, sensing opportunity. “If you’d like a guided tour of-“

She really did have a knack for thinking up the worst possible options. Marianne sighed and made peace temporarily with the idea of Nicollier in her kitchen. Least of two evils, right? “Camille, go get an apron."

“I have an apron.”

“For-“ She pointed her spatula vaguely in Nicollier’s direction, refusing to make eye contact. “Our guest.”

Camille huffed and flounced off toward the hallway. There was about ten seconds’ worth of rustling before she returned with a white apron, which she presented to Nicollier.

“Oh,” Nicollier said, sounding a touch surprised. “Should I-“

“Yes, put it on. And come here. Thank you, Camille.”

“No problem,” Camille said peppily, and went back to the sea cucumbers with no argument, which was very suspicious.

More rustling. Then Nicollier said, from closer than Marianne had expected, “What now?”

Marianne turned to inspect her.

And paused.

She was wearing one of Marianne’s spare aprons. The executive chef’s. With the Portrait logo and Marianne’s name below it. She was shifting from foot to foot and her hair was very slightly mussed from where she had slipped the band over her head.

Camille had the good sense to be occupied with something important. But from the smile on her face she knew she was dead the instant service ended.

“This is a standard prep process,” Marianne said, turning abruptly back to the abalone. “Because it’s such a small restaurant we don’t have any _commis_ , which means the structure is very different from the brigade. So we tend to do large batches of prep together.”

“Abalone?” Nicollier asked. She had come closer. Enough so that Marianne could smell her perfume, which was irritating.

“Yes. See how they’re curled up? That means they’re ready.”

“And what are you meant to do?”

“Well, first you clean the inside. Between the two-“

“Oh my God, that looks like a vagina,” Camille said very loudly. She didn’t quite say ‘vagina’ but her meaning was absolutely unmistakeable.

“ _Camille_ ,” Marianne snapped, her cheeks going hot. It- did. The resemblance was uncanny, actually. But that was probably the worst thing anyone could have said, especially given that _Nicollier_ was standing right there. And also that Marianne had to now put her hands on them. With Nicollier _right there_.

“It sort of does, actually,” Antoine agreed. “Look, it even has that part at the top.”

“You mean the-“

This was _mortifyingly_ unprofessional. “Prep,” Marianne growled. Then, to Nicollier, “Sorry. Where was I?”

“Cleaning the inside.”

“Right, cleaning the inside.” She reached for an abalone shell. “With a rough cloth I’ll go between the-“

There was no word for it. Well, there was. But Marianne was hardly going to say-

“Lips,” David supplied.

_Et tu, Brute?_

“Yes,” Marianne said despondently, and returned her attention to the abalone, which had firmed up under the heat. Carefully she turned it over in her palm so it was still underwater. Then with her other hand she passed the rough cloth along the soft flesh of the inside, with just enough pressure to take off the top layer. Two more strokes, up each side, rubbing hard enough that the muscle gave and the lips opened up to the cloth. Not too quickly. Else the outside would be uneven. Behind her Nicollier let out a breath, the air ghosting along the back of Marianne’s neck. Which was-

Nevermind.

“Like that,” Marianne said, a little too loudly, and put the abalone off to the side.

“Very good,” Nicollier said, also a little too loudly. “I’m going to go- look at the sea cucumber.”

“Okay.”

She went off with haste, leaving Marianne alone with the rest of the fourteen abalone. And Antoine, who was sucking his cheeks all the way in.

“Out of the shell,” Marianne ordered, and pushed the cleaned abalone in his direction.

“Okay,” he said peaceably.

“What did you say?”

“Nothing.”

Nicollier wandered back over once all the abalone had been cleaned and taken out of their shells. She was still wearing the apron.

“Hello,” she said. “Is this more cleaning?”

“Yes, it takes off the layer of dirt that accumulates. Did you know most chefs just slice this part off? All of it. Perfectly good meat.”

“Do they?”

“They do.” Marianne shook her head disapprovingly. “High-quality abalone, too. Taking off ten euros’ worth with every slice.”

“Scrooge,” sang Camille. Only David laughed. And Nicollier. Her laugh was quiet but still annoying especially given that Camille was spouting nonsense again, and nobody except David laughed at Camille’s jokes. It was a cardinal rule of the kitchens.

“Who?”

“Scrooge! You know, the old man. Noël, Noël. He sees the ghosts.”

Marianne and Antoine traded a confused look.

“From an English novel,” Nicollier explained.

Antoine turned to Marianne and said, conversationally, “Camille went to England once, did you hear?”

“What, really? No, she never talks about it.”

“I know, she’s so humble.”

“You guys are mean,” Camille said with a pout. “Héloïse, will you put that in the interview? Marianne Desgarnier hates her _entremetier_.”

 _Héloïse_?

Oh. Nicollier.

“I can make no assurances,” she said, with a smile.

Come to think of it, she had told Camille to call her Héloïse. Did they know each other? No, they wouldn’t have introduced themselves. Then why so informal? They weren’t _friends_ , after all. Were they?

“Five minutes on the _langues de chat_ ,” Mathilde called. Marianne hummed in acknowledgment and returned her focus to the abalone.

Except there was hair in her face.

One single strand, right above her eye. She scrunched up her nose and tried to blow it out of the way without success.

“Christ,” she mumbled, and tipped her face down into the crook of her elbow. Again, ineffectual.

Nicollier looked up. “What is it?”

“Nothing. Hair in my face.”

“Oh. I can-“ One hand came into Marianne’s field of vision. Was she- offering? “If you-“

“You-“

“Just to get it out of the way.”

It was horribly itchy. “Well,” Marianne said, stiffly. “If you wouldn’t mind.”

“I don’t.”

Very carefully she reached out, took the strand of hair between finger and thumb, and tugged it back around Marianne’s ear. When she let go the very tips of her fingers brushed, just for a second, against the line of Marianne’s jaw. Which was inconvenient. To say the least.

Once the full-body spasm had passed Marianne cleared her throat and said, “Thanks.”

Nicollier smiled. Probably. For some reason Marianne couldn’t exactly look at her. But knowing her fondness for getting a rise out of people she was probably brimming with glee. “ _De rien_ ,” she said.

She left very shortly after, claiming an appointment. It was only when she was out the door that Marianne remembered what she had come to do. She made a note to ask Sophie to send her a message. Or not. If she wanted that interview so badly she would show up and get it herself.

But Marianne still wanted that wine pairing.

Message it was, then.

She returned to the abalone and let her thoughts drift slightly, which was a mistake, because inevitably they came around to that- that- incident. With the hair. Marianne’s hair. And Nicollier’s hand.

She hadn’t- lingered, or anything. It was a perfectly normal thing to do, anyway. If one chef’s hands were busy and they needed something done then it would be done. Camille asked far worse of Marianne on a daily basis.

Just then the timer for the _langues de chat_ went off, and Marianne dismissed the thought for a later date. Or never, actually. Never was just fine for her.


	13. fish course two

The next day Marianne found herself in the unusual position of enjoying a Wednesday morning. There were a few reasons for this: the fishmongers had just come off strike and were in a nice mood today, the weather was good, none of the recipes today required goat cheese, and the cucumbers had already been peeled. Further improving the situation was that the two chefs coming in early today were Mathilde and David, who each offered quiet greetings and a companionable bump of shoulders. Their conversation was friendly and free of profanity. No yelling. Just the low simmer of sauces and the occasional splash of the two-day marinade. In silent ecstasy Marianne braided her challah dough.

Unfortunately 10.00 arrived, and brought with it the customary chaos.

“Marianne,” Camille shrieked, skidding into the kitchens. “Marianne, look!”

“What?”

She held up her prize with a look of near-maniacal pride. “Look at it!”

‘It’ was a small ceramic chicken. Or at least the disembodied skull of one. Its beak was chipped and it looked like it had seen better days, and also the inside of several garbage dumps.

“What the fuck is that,” said Marianne.

“I got it from the market! Two euros. Deal of your fucking life. David, get me an egg.”

“Don’t you dare waste an egg on- on-“ Marianne found she could not quite put it into words. She settled for pointing. “Whatever that is.”

“It’s a separator!” Camille cried. She took the proffered egg, cracked it with a one-handed flourish, and let it fall into the chicken’s skull. “Marianne, look, look, come on, ready-“

With great flair she picked it up by the back end and tilted it straight down. There was a hideous noise as the chicken’s beak creaked open. And nothing else. Camille frowned, shook the chicken a little, and the egg white came glooping out of its open beak.

“Unbelievable,” Marianne muttered, and pressed her fingers to her temples.

“Oh shut up, it’s fantastic. I just have to fix it up a little.” She set the chicken down and offered Marianne the solitary egg white in its bowl. “Here, you love making meringues. Right?”

A pause. Ominous silence.

“Come on, don’t look so sour. Your face’ll freeze like that, you know.”

“You have five seconds to get that thing out of my sight,” Marianne said through gritted teeth.

Wisely Camille did not push her luck. “I’ll go show Mathilde,” she said, and skipped away.

“Marianne,” called Sophie, from the door.

“Yes?”

“She wrote back. Says she can do tomorrow afternoon or evening as long as it doesn’t run too late.”

“Picky,” Marianne muttered. “14.30, then.”

Sophie hummed in assent and went scurrying off, which left Marianne free to finish slicing the apricots into neat paper-thin half moons. Tarts. Beautiful things, they were. Amazing the things you could do with puff pastry and a little fruit. What exactly did Nicollier have to do so pressingly on a Thursday? Another restaurant review? How many could she write, really? And if the review was done then when on earth was it going to be published?

To distract from her sudden annoyance Marianne started layering the apricot slices in perfect rose-petal formation on the second tart. If they went into the oven in five minutes they would still be warm for lunch service. Topped with a quenelle of- no, not vanilla- maybe the lavender honey? Yes, good.

It was with this pleasing image in mind that she pulled the cakes out of the oven and reached up to put them on the cooling rack.

And then nearly dropped them.

“Very sorry to startle you,” said Nicollier.

Hastily Marianne installed the cakes on the rack, and made an attempt at lowering her skyrocketing heart rate. What on earth was she doing here? Had she somehow heard Marianne thinking about her? “What is it,” she demanded.

“I thought I would-“ she held up the little bag slung over her shoulder- “bring this back. To you.”

“Bring what back to me?”

“The apron. That you lent me.” She blinked, then corrected herself, “That Camille lent me.“

Marianne frowned. For some reason she was feeling extra irritated today. Which was- that could be easily chalked up to Nicollier. And Wednesdays. “Well, that’s fine,” she said. “It’s an extra. You didn’t have to bring it back so soon.”

“Right.”

They looked at each other in silence for a moment. Her hair was up today and inexplicably she had a little pin on the breast pocket of her shirt. Some sort of dinosaur, it looked like. Marianne frowned and squinted at it. A- skeleton? A dinosaur skeleton?

“Erm,” said Nicollier.

 _Oh God._ “No, sorry, I wasn’t,” Marianne began, flushing hot. “No. You have a- a pin.”

“What? Oh, yes.” She tipped her chin down to look at the pin, thankfully distracted. “It was a gift from the museum.”

“I see,” Marianne said. Though she didn’t really. What kind of person gave a dinosaur pin as a gift?

“It’s a pachycephalosaur,” Nicollier explained. “Cretaceous period, I believe. Very well preserved.”

She looked up, met Marianne’s eyes. Oddly enough she went a slight shade of pink. “Pardon me. My nephew has gotten a bit of an obsession. I suppose it’s rubbed off.”

A nephew?

Now that she was thinking about it, Marianne had never considered the singularly appalling possibility of a Nicollier _family_. But if Nicollier had a nephew then she must have some sort of sibling. Which meant that all around Paris there were other Nicolliers running about, all of them serious and blond, at least one of them tiny. It was, Marianne told herself, a horrifying prospect.

“How old is he?” she asked, busying herself with perfecting the edges of the tart.

“Four,” Nicollier said. “He turns five in a few weeks.”

“A birthday? Do you have anything planned?”

“Yes, actually. To the museum, then a picnic for lunch. And then dinner with the family.”

Mostly against her will Marianne smiled. She was slightly less repellent like this, her eyes crinkled with fondness, pink mouth upturned. “Sounds like a nice day.”

Nicollier seemed to remember herself. “Yes,” she agreed.

And they were back to looking at each other.

Very quietly David cleared his throat.

“While you’re here,” he said, with a hopeful note.

Nicollier perked up a little, which was doubly good because it both broke the stare and let Marianne move onto doing something productive. Like- brushing the tart down with apricot glaze. Or something. “What are you preparing?”

“It’s the two-day abalone. This is a very light fry, but I’m not sure if the texture works with the celeriac mash I’ve paired it with. Do you want to come try it?”

“I would be happy to,” Nicollier said. Marianne put her head down and tried to concentrate on stirring the glaze reduction, but the sound of footsteps seemed like it was getting closer. Far too late Marianne realised that in order to get to David’s station Nicollier would have to go _around_ her.

“Excuse me,” Nicollier said, and Marianne straightened so abruptly that they nearly collided, which meant that for just an instant there was a steadying touch at the small of her back.

Which was.

Fine.

Nothing really.

Anyways in an instant it was gone and Nicollier was moving past to reach David’s station, both hands resolutely clutching the straps of her little tote bag.

They talked, quietly, for the next few minutes or so. Marianne put the tart in the oven, ignoring both of them, and went into the freezer, where she found Camille and Mathilde sorting through the freezer shelves. They looked up when she came in.

“I’m looking for the mussel stock,” Camille said. “From two weeks ago.”

Marianne frowned, joining them at the shelves. “It should be organised by date.”

“It is. I think David might have used it for something.”

“Go and ask him, then.”

“Okay, fine. Why do you look so frazzled?”

“I don’t.”

Camille’s eyebrows went up but she made no comment. Instead she blew a kiss at Marianne as she went by, and kicked the door open with a flourish. As it swung closed she heard the cry of, “Héloïse!”

Slowly and steadily Marianne’s eye began to twitch.

“You might say something to her,” Mathilde said, gently. “If it bothers you that much.”

Marianne shook her head violently and pulled the lavender honey gelato from the rack. “It doesn’t bother me,” she said.

“Okay.”

She lasted approximately ten seconds. With eyes fixed on the spotless counter (for no reason; there was nothing irrational about this) she bit out, “I just think it’s odd.”

“It’s standard practice.”

“Not between chef and critic. Especially before the publishing of a review.”

Mathilde stood up, container in hand and one eyebrow arched. “Then why did you have lunch with her?”

Marianne floundered for a response. But the door was already swinging shut, with Mathilde on the other side of it and the question lingering like smoke in the air.

When Marianne exited the freezer with gelato in tow Nicollier was gone, and everything was back to normal. Except for two things. Which were- the knowing look Mathilde shot her from across the kitchen, and the neatly folded apron sitting on the shared station.

In an uneasy temper Marianne went about the rest of the day.

Thursday lunch service ended and right away Marianne began the arduous process of getting Camille through the gate. She knew from experience that it would take at least the full time of setup. Maybe more.

“No, I don’t want to,” Camille said, starting to back away. “You can’t make me. Marianne, no. Marianne! I have- you bitch, you whore, let go of me- I have a date tonight! No! I have to be sexy!”

Antoine snorted. “Fat chance,” he said, which was good because it meant Camille started devoting her efforts to trying to pummel him and not Marianne. With that key distraction she was easily manhandled out the door and set up on the grass, far away from any flames.

“Okay, everyone,” Marianne said, with a decisive clap. “Lemon peels?”

David held up his empty container. “Leftover from the trout.”

“Coffee beans?”

“Straight from my stash,” Camille said grumpily.

“Your fault for putting it under the machine.”

“I’ll rip your face off, Antoine.”

“Sugar, cinnamon, cloves- anything else?”

“Orange peels,” David said. “For extra sweetness.”

“And the _orujo_ ,” Mathilde concluded. She bent down over the big clay pot and sniffed delicately.

“Good?” David asked.

With relish Mathilde shook her head. “Horrible. Who wants to light the fire? Anyone? Not Camille, please.”

“You know what?” Camille said, immediately. She slapped the tops of her thighs with a decisive _thwack_ and Marianne knew the battle was lost. “I will. Because there’s no point living in fear.”

“That’s what you said last time.”

“And the time before that.”

“This time is different.” Camille rose, and with great fanfare marched to the pot. “Mathilde, the lighter, please.”

“Somebody stop her,” David said sadly.

“Can’t now.”

“Too late.”

“At least let me light it for you,” Mathilde asked.

“No, I’ve got it. Give it to me.”

Mathilde looked despairingly to Marianne, who could offer only a shrug. With a certain resignation the lighter was surrendered up, and the miniature fire extinguisher transferred from Antoine to David.

“You could wear goggles one of these times, you know.”

Camille shook her head. “That’s a passive acceptance of fate.”

“It’s _safety_.”

“Shut up, I’m concentrating.” The lighter flicked on with a hiss. Hardly daring to hope, Marianne noted that she was holding the ladle at waist height. That was promising. Reduced the chance of anything like Incident #1 happening. Carefully (a rare phenomenon) she set the thimbleful of alcohol aflame. A leaping _whoosh_ of fire narrowly missed her face, but she didn’t drop the ladle. That was Incident #2 averted, too.

Marianne, watching with bated breath, dared say nothing. Even inhaling too loudly could do it now.

Two tiny steps brought Camille to the edge of the pot, where she held out the ladle by its handle and poured it, slow and ceremonious, into the pot. In an instant it caught fire, bright orange licking up the sides of the pot. _Queimada_ aflame. Camille unscathed. Safe.

Antoine whistled, low and relieved, and the moment broke.

“Oh my God,” David said, putting a hand over his chest. Marianne felt much the same way- about ten seconds out from a heart attack.

“How does it feel?” she asked Camille, who was stirring the pot with a thoughtful expression.

“Hm? Good. Smells weird, though. Sort of like hand sanitiser.” And before anyone could say anything she lifted the ladle, haloed by a ring of blue fire, to her nose. And sniffed.

“Oh, fuck,” Marianne sighed, and this time managed to get the fire blanket round her face immediately, yanking her away from the pot. “You fucking idiot. What the hell is wrong with you?”

“It’s out, it’s out,” Camille said, muffled, and pushed the blanket off her head. “Do I still have eyebrows?”

They traded looks.

“Yes,” David said slowly.

“One and a half,” Antoine offered.

“The half is only a little singed,” Mathilde added. “Best result yet.”

The injured party groaned and rubbed her face with the palm of one hand. “At least it didn’t hurt too much. Marianne, how bad is it?”

Marianne inspected the damage. The very ends of her eyebrows had been singed to a light brown, and were curling slightly. Her eyelashes had lightened a little, too. From far away she looked essentially the same.

“You’re fine,” she decreed. “Not bad. You might want to trim the ends off.”

Camille breathed a sigh of relief. “Okay, I’m never doing that again,” she said, with the blithe confidence characteristic of the insane. “Next time it’s on one of you.”

Precisely at 14.23, as Marianne was lifting the pistachio bucket out from beneath the churn, there was a knock on the door of the freezer.

“Come in,” she called.

“Hello,” said Nicollier’s blond head, peeking round the door.

Marianne paused to stare at her in brief stupefaction.

Oh, right. The interview. “You’re early,” she said accusingly.

“Yes, sorry. Sophie directed me here. Should I wait?”

“No. Close the door, though. You’re letting out the cold air.”

Nicollier came in a little further, the door swinging shut behind her. In silence she looked around at the shelves full of neatly labelled containers and the racks of Italian buckets. She was- very close. Actually the freezer was a little too small for two people. Marianne cleared her throat and concentrated on smoothing out the pale green gelato.

“The kitchen is empty,” Nicollier said, soft enough not to break the silence. “What are the other chefs doing?”

“They’re making a _queimada_ out back,” Marianne said distractedly, as she set her timer to eight minutes. Pistachio was done, avocado coconut cardamom was in the churn. Goats-milk with splinters of honeycomb next. “It’s a drink from Galicia. You’re meant to set the _orujo_ on fire and stir it till the flames all turn blue. Excuse me, I need the-”

Nicollier stepped to the side- the _wrong_ side- just as Marianne went to get the container of goats-milk, which meant that they were. Well. Nose-to-nose. Just for a moment, then Marianne’s fingers closed around the container and she nearly leaped backward, clutching it like a lifejacket. Hastily she turned around and devoted all her attention to re-ordering the buckets.

“Right,” she said, cheeks flaming. Too much time in the sun, probably. She would have to put on lotion tonight. “After you, please. Through the gate.”

Outside, the cot had been wheeled out, and David and Camille were perched on it side-by-side with Antoine asleep behind them. There was a plate of leftover fried fish and thin curls of roasted jicama balanced on his chest, an apron folded beneath it to protect from the heat. Someone- probably David- had set a towel over his eyes. Mathilde was bent over the pot, stirring away. The sun was high and a breeze brought with it cigarette smoke and the steam from the _queimada_.

Marianne took a deep slow breath and smelled bliss. And also hand sanitiser.

“This is the _queimada_ making,” she said to Nicollier. “Nice, isn’t it?”

Nicollier nodded in agreement. Her presence should have been irritating but to her surprise Marianne found she didn’t mind it. Maybe because she was being quiet.

“How often do you do this?” she asked.

“Every month. Do you want to know why?”

“Why?”

“That’s how long it takes Camille’s eyebrows to grow back.”

There was a moment of silence. Then Nicollier laughed.

Actually laughed. It was only the second time she had ever done it. Which was why it was so shocking to see.

Marianne coughed and went back to watching Mathilde stir the pot. “Anyways,” she said. “The interview."

“Yes, the interview.” In her peripheral vision Marianne saw her fold her hands neatly, right over left. “I would like to observe a service first beforehand. If it wouldn’t be too much trouble.”

Nicollier in the kitchens during service? Marianne felt a headache set in just thinking about it. “A lunch service,” she decided reluctantly. “But you’ll have to stay out of the way.”

“I can do that,” Nicollier said, very seriously.

“Okay,” Marianne said. She stole a glance over and found that Nicollier was already looking back at her, gaze steady. Her eyelashes were annoyingly long. Marianne wondered whether they sometimes got in the way of seeing things. Though that wasn’t how eyelashes worked, really.

“Next week?” Nicollier was saying.

Marianne blinked. “What?”

“Would Wednesday of next week be all right?”

“Oh. Yes, that should be fine. Come in at 10.30.”

Nicollier hummed in agreement. “And the wine pairing?”

The wine pairing. Marianne had almost forgotten.

“Next Saturday,” she offered. “If you’re free.”

“I am.”

Before Marianne could say anything the timer for the gelato went off, shrill and insistent. “I have to,” she said, motioning.

“Yes, do.” Nicollier dipped her chin in farewell. “Good afternoon.”

By the time Marianne replaced the gelato and came outside again Nicollier had disappeared, and Mathilde was carefully pouring a tiny splash of _queimada_ into each of their five coffee mugs.

“It’s hot,” she said, offering Marianne one of the mugs. “Blow on it first.”

Marianne hummed in acknowledgment and went to the cot, nudging David over to sit beside him. He and Camille were having a friendly debate about the merits of cilantro in ceviche. Antoine was still draped over the back of the cot, snoring ever so slightly. The now-empty plate on his chest rose and fell, rose and fell. Mathilde came over with the rest of the mugs, distributed them to hums of appreciation, and hopped up next to Camille.

All of it washed over Marianne- the sweet acid slap of the _queimada_ , the soft bickering, the heat of the mug between her cupped hands, the distant hissing of the tamed flame. She closed her eyes and drank till the warmth filled her belly.

Then she went back in to change the gelato containers. No rest for the wicked, after all.


	14. kumquat course

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> very sorry for the confusion!!! 100% my fault & will not be doing any technological experiments from hereon out

Tomorrow arrived and Marianne, to her considerable surprise, found herself un-prodded on matters of her personal life. Overnight the spotlight had shifted over to greener pastures. Namely-

“Your date,” Antoine said insistently.

Camille blinked at him, bleary-eyed and uncomprehending.

“Your date,” he repeated, louder, when no response was forthcoming.

“Oh!” She brightened. “My date! Yes, it was fine. I went over and we watched a movie.”

“Which movie?”

She pretended to think about it for a moment, then shrugged. “I don’t remember. We didn’t get that far in.”

At Camille's lascivious wink Antoine gagged and shoved her. She cackled, loud and gleeful, and shoved him back. Marianne sighed and intervened before the brawl started in earnest. “Let’s discuss this _after_ service,” she said pointedly.

“I’m not done yet,” Camille protested. “Then he asked me how work was, and I said it was fine, and he asked if I would make him something to eat. And I said- I said-”

“Don’t-“

“I said, today’s your lucky day, because-”

“Camille-”

“I’m serving up a-“

“ _Camille!”_

“Okay, okay, jesus.” Still laughing Camille went to her station, tying her apron in an extravagant bow. “It was fine. Not great. Guys aren’t, most of the time.”

Out of the corner of her eye Marianne saw David’s eyebrows go up. He was smiling down at his stack of halibut, head tipping side-to-side.

Huh. Marianne filed that one away for future reference.

“Enough,” she said, interrupting Antoine’s offended spluttering. “Prep time.”

On Monday morning, as Marianne was very carefully trimming off some mint leaves for the braised lamb, her pocket buzzed. Which should have been the first warning sign, really.

“Hello,” she said, tucking the phone between shoulder and cheek. “What is it?”

“She’s sent me an email,” Laurent said morosely.

Oh, good. Another day ruined. “Not so much as a how-are-you? Who?”

“You know who.”

“Sure.” The faster she played along the sooner it would be over. “What did she say?”

“I don’t know, I can’t fucking tell.” Something rustled, probably his notepad. “Most of it makes sense. Less fat on the _pajeon_ when paired with the terrine, salt and acid for the crab, whatever, but then she says- let me read it out to you- she says, I would suggest the introduction of a greater spatial complexity, on both axes but more particularly the vertical. Which. I know what that means. But I don’t _know_ what that means.”

Marianne sighed and moved onto the coriander. She had ordered a new blend of chocolate and crushed- or maybe dried then pulverised- coriander would do very nicely in it. “All she means is that you have enough things on the plate but you’re not putting them together well enough. She wants a structure. Preferably one that gets up over the plate.”

“So, what, stacks?”

“Sure. Stacks.”

He paused. “Is that an actual recommendation?”

“Do whatever you want, Laurent.”

“Okay,” he said slowly. Then the dreaded question- “Hey, where’s your review? I keep looking for it and nothing. Even in this week’s paper it was just something about the, um, the cultivation of kumquats?”

The coriander seeds were very narrowly saved from a tragic fate on the floor. “What?”

“She wrote a. Wait. What is it called? One of those pieces for the, I don’t know, the big magazine. Doesn’t your maitre d’ have a Google Alert?”

“Oh, yes,” Sophie said, lighting up. She tapped few times at the screen then started to read: “An altogether unremarkable little tree, the _Citrus japonica,_ or _Fortunella,_ as it was known in-“

“When,” Marianne demanded, making an unsuccessful attempt at seizing the iPad.

“Published yesterday. Apparently she went to Florida.” Sophie frowned wistfully down at the article. “I wish _I_ could go to Florida.”

Antoine whistled his way past, _tagine_ cradled in his arms. “Too bad. No breaks for us.”

“Let us rise up and overthrow the haute bourgeoisie which makes its fortunes off our backs,” Camille said genially. “Marianne, will you take us to Florida?”

“Florida is boring,” Marianne said distractedly, skimming the article over Sophie’s shoulder. _My introduction to the humble kumquat was a rather unfortunate altercation, during which_ \- “And expensive, too.” _This small and primitive fruit_. _Sunrise on the farm, harvesting. They note the particular oil of the rind._ A few recipes, a few pictures. Mostly of the farmers with their sunroughed unsmiling faces and big gloved hands, and of ripe bursting fruits framed by leaves. And another one, a closeup of someone who must be Nicollier, chin-down, just her outstretched hand and a cloud of bright orange peel over an enormous salad plating. There were five colourful plastic bowls of rough-chopped vegetables stacked beside her. Which was an idiotic way to do it. Just toss the salad, Marianne thought, disapprovingly. If you were going to arrange it you might as well do it with precision.

With a flick of her finger Sophie scrolled to another picture laid among the text. Nicollier, from waist-up this time, very seriously examining three jars of kumquats. There was a tiny woman next to her, laughing, head thrown back and hands meeting under her chin. That was nice. It was a good picture.

“Wait,” Marianne said. She reached round Sophie and spread two fingers, dragging the image in closer. Not on her _face_ , on the jars. Different species. “Look, the _Nagami_. That’s the one we use. Oval-shaped, not too sour.” Then shifting the picture over to the jar she was holding up to her face, “ _Meiwa_. Rounder.” Last one, her hand curled round it, ring finger tucked underneath, which was a stupid way to hold a jar even if your fingers were that long. Too much pressure on the joints. “And the- _Marumi_? Maybe. Or the other one was.”

“Uh-huh,” Sophie said, unimpressed, and pulled the iPad away so the image zoomed out again. Which revealed, in very large text next to the photo, ' _The Nagami, the Meiwa, and the Marumi.’_

Oh.

“I,” said Marianne, colouring slightly in discomfort, “I was- _going_ to elaborate, on the seasonal- if you hadn’t interrupted me-“

“Okay, Marianne.”

“It’s not as if I was-“

“Let’s see it,” Camille said, popping up behind Marianne. “Ooh, that’s a nice picture. She looks good. Doesn’t she look good?”

“No,” Marianne said stolidly.

“Liar.” And before Marianne could refute it, “We don’t have any pictures like this. I mean, if she brings a photographer in for your interview-? But then-“ Camille grabbed Marianne’s shoulders, piggybacking to squint at the photograph. “No, they could never get one like that in here.”

“What? Why not?”

“Because,” Camille said cheerfully, “neither of you could be the one laughing.”

Well. She had a point, maybe. “Because she’s not funny,” Marianne muttered, and went off to sort out more important things.

Post-lunch service Marianne engaged in some more of the activity that made up nearly all of her free time, which was cleaning. All hands on deck to keep every surface spotless. Pots scrubbed clean, gloves on for the boiling hot water to keep her hands from blistering and turning raw, dishes rinsed and put in the washer, stations cleared and floor swept. A _lot_ of cleaning.

After that there was about an hour and a half where everyone could do as they pleased. Sometimes that was extra prep. Sometimes the other chefs would go to the little park around the corner and come back with mild frostbite and sunburnednoses. On those days Marianne made a foamy _café de olla_ and maybe put out some leftover strawberry baklava too, if they were lucky. Other days they went shopping, and came back always with a little trinket for her to scoff at and then hang on her apron hook. Those days it was a simple sort of sliced fruit, or one of the hundred variations on peaches and cream she had designed in her halcyon youth. In the first month she had spent much of that time practicing her portraits, doodling faces with painstaking care onto one of the deformed cakes. Now she split her time between the churn and the ovens. On lazier days, the greenhouse too.

This was one of the rare days where they all went out (Camille and Antoine for the shopping, the rest for errands or lolling in the sun) and Marianne was left alone in the kitchens. It was also one of the even rarer days where she found herself wishing someone else were here. Just as a distraction. Not that there was anything to be distracted _from_. But the silence could be overwhelming, sometimes. And to be quite frank Marianne was a little unnerved by that article. Kumquats? Really? There were infinite semi-exotic fruits capable of capturing the interest of the reading public, which did not involve history- well, not _history_ , that wasn’t really the right word- which did not involve past occurrences between the author of the article and Marianne, in which they had exchanged words and also specimens of the above semi-exotic small citrus fruit. And why on earth had she chosen kumquats? These publishers were really getting loose with their requirements nowadays. Honestly. When had she even had time to go to Florida in between brutalising the global restaurant industry and disturbing the sanctity of Marianne’s kitchen, anyway? She had been here- what, Thursday? Yes, for the _queimada_. Not to mention that she hadn’t known anything about kumquats before, considering how she had acted. Unprompted and not entirely of her own volition Marianne remembered- that ridiculous thing she had done, the pink of her tongue on her soft forearm. And the treacle notes of the honey that, post-service, absentminded, Marianne had licked off her own wrist.

She shivered and shook her head, a little violently. What was that? A sneeze, maybe. Hopefully there weren’t any allergens coming in through the open door. Else Antoine’s hay fever would be an ugly thing come the full brunt of spring.

When the alarm chimed she seized it with unusual gratitude and went to check the churn.

“I mean,” Marianne said, later, unable to contain herself. “I mean, it’s a little odd. Isn’t it?”

“Mhm,” said David, who was definitely listening as he cleaned off the crab shells.

“It just doesn’t- there are _thousands_ of topics. You know? Maybe it was a coincidence.”

“Mhm.”

“No, it couldn’t have been.” She picked up her rolling pin and tapped it thoughtfully against one palm. “Actually. It’s kind of rude, isn’t it? Not to have told us?”

“Very,” David agreed.

A sign of life! Marianne looked over at him. “You think so?”

“Mhm.”

Okay. Dispirited, she muttered, “I just don’t understand the timeline. How she could have written that in a week, when she didn’t know anything about it.”

That garnered an actual reaction. David snorted and hauled his pot off the stove. On the way to the sink he said, “Isn’t she supposed to be some Michelin star person?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Then,” he said, barely audible over the splashing, “she probably knew what a kumquat was. At very least.”

That was a fair point. Though overestimating the knowledge of any critic had never been fruitful, in Marianne’s experience. She resolved to think about it later.

As it turned out, she had no time to think about it later. At dinner service a Canadian couple arrived in hopeful spirits only to find that their table was occupied, and after consulting her iPad Sophie came to the conclusion that they had booked their ten-year anniversary dinner for the wrong day (the tragedy being further augmented by the fact that their hot-air balloon hadn’t lifted off the ground and also that the outdoor concert they were meant to see had been cancelled due to rain and also that they returned to Toronto tomorrow afternoon so they couldn’t possibly come in another time). This was all reported to Marianne with near-teary pleas for clemency. Marianne had never done very well with crying or romance and thus gave in far too early, setting a potentially dangerous precedent.

“Fine,” she barked. “Fine, yes, give them the fire table. And- will you _please_ stop looking at me like that? I said yes.”

“Oh, Marianne,” Sophie said, very sentimentally, and went off to set up the table.

They turned out to be very nice people. Even so Marianne did have to make a point. On principle.

“You’re damn lucky we prepped enough extras,” she informed a beaming Sophie, on her way back to the kitchens. “Else I wouldn’t have considered it for a _second_.”

“Of course.”

“And now we have a gap in tomorrow’s reservations.”

“It evens out. Come on. Look how happy they are.”

Marianne glanced over her shoulder and saw their intertwined hands and appallingly shy smiles and nauseating eyes only for each other.

“Whatever,” she said, without nearly enough heat. Then she rallied in the holy name of the reservation system and poked an accusing finger at Sophie. “You know who to blame if people start asking about walk-ins.”

She made a face like she was trying not to laugh. Whatever had happened to respecting your superiors? “Yes, Marianne.”

“Don’t say ‘Yes, Marianne’ to me.”

“Yes, Marianne.”

Life was an uphill battle, and it certainly would not be won tonight. With her head held high Marianne went back to start the extras for the newcomers.


	15. eel course

As if it were even possible, Tuesday started even worse than Monday had.

“Marianne,” said David, very hesitantly.

“Yes?”

“I want to do jellied eels.”

Marianne nearly broke her neck with the speed at which she whirled. “You _what_?”

“Jellied eels,” he repeated.

“Jellied eels?”

“With a traditional English pie, on the side.”

“A traditional English pie,” Marianne said, in rigid disbelief. At his nod she regarded him for another moment. Then she turned and barked, “Camille!”

“Yes, darling,” said Camille.

“Did you have anything to do with this?”

“What, the pie? No. Especially not anything with jellied eels, jesus.”

Then who-? Not Mathilde, surely, and none of the waitstaff would dare. Sophie? No, not on a Tuesday. And there was no way on earth Antoine would ever willingly, of his own volition, without a gun to his head (Marianne glanced over very surreptitiously just to check), even as a practical joke, suggest as English a thing as pie with jellied eels. Someone was to blame. The issue was who.

“David, I have a question for you.”

“Yes?”

“What goes into jellied eels?”

His eyes darted to the side. “Eels.”

“I’m looking for the other component.”

A sigh. “Jelly,” he said reluctantly.

“Meat-flavoured gelatin,” Marianne said, enunciating. “ _Meat gelatin_.” She went to the little bulletin board and removed a single sheet of paper, containing a list of three typed items and various scribbles below. “What does the List say, again?”

“Gold leaf.”

“And?”

“ _Foie gras_.”

“And?”

“Meat-flavoured gelatin,” he conceded.

Grimly Marianne tacked it back on the wall. At this point an interested crowd of two had gathered, and were clamouring to know what was happening. (The List was only brought out in exceptional circumstances.)

“It’s only for lunch,” was David’s paltry defence, “and okay, I’ll cut the jelly. Adapt the recipe. _Aalsoep_? Or a French take. Maybe Mongolian-style baking?”

“So- eels cooked in hot rocks,” Camille concluded, and moved on. 

“For the menu or the _petits fours_?” asked Mathilde.

The three of them exchanged a look.

“Appetiser,” Marianne said, pained. “It has to be an appetiser.”

“Hm. Maybe an Indian sauce? Curry, or- what sort of eels are you planning on using?”

“Farmed. I have a local sustainable source."

“Then something with a little brightness. Acid.” Mathilde hummed the five-note melody that meant something brilliant was in the works. “Yes, I’ve got it. I’ll have something for you in half an hour, David.”

Off she went to her station, still humming. Marianne turned back to David, ready to demand what the hell he had been thinking, but he had already disappeared back to his station, evading any further admonishment. Marianne observed the back of his head with great concern. Clearly this was what happened when a kitchen went too long without any time off- they started thinking they could make English food palatable. Hopefully he would forget the whole idea over the holiday.

Wednesdays, Marianne thought sombrely, as she surveyed the planter of wilting kohlrabi and unhappy cucumber, did not seem to get any better with time. And the damn things just kept coming, week after week. The fishmongers were on strike again and the meat supplier was thirty minutes late. Three of the servers had caught a cold and they would be running short today unless Sophie managed to bring in replacements. Not to mention David had actually gone ahead and bought a lunch service’s worth of eels. And to top it all off Nicollier somehow managed to arrive too late to be shown around and too early for Marianne’s primary prep. Because _of course_ nothing could ever be easy.

“Oh, Christ,” Marianne said, upon seeing her come ambling in through the door with that stupid hopeful expression. “Fine. Come in. You’re early.”

“I was told 10.00,” she said.

Marianne squinted and thought about it- that didn’t sound quite right, but then again no times did. “Did I tell you that?”

“No. Sophie did.”

How lovely. A conspiracy against Marianne in her own kitchens. “Okay. I’m testing a recipe, so if you want to watch that you can. Or anything else, I don’t care. Just stay out of the way.” She spun on her heel and went back to her station, where the pot was warming.

Luckily Nicollier did not follow her. Instead there was the soft sound of her questioning Camille about whatever she was currently prettying up. Marianne glanced over just in time to see her use the torch to flambé something which almost certainly did not need flambéing. 

Hmph.

Marianne put her head down and focussed on her loaves. Camille could do what she wanted just as long as she didn’t throw off the menu. Or burn the kitchens down. Or say anything about Marianne.

Somewhere in the middle of recipe development, after server briefings, Nicollier came wandering over. Someone (Camille) had given her an apron and a hairnet and she looked ridiculous. Especially while she was standing there in silence watching Marianne do five thousand things at once. Not that Marianne was ignoring her. Because that would be childish.

“Hello,” Nicollier said finally. "How is this all coming together?"

“A marinière,” Marianne told her, a little distractedly. “Classic French technique. The mussel, the onion, the shallot, in the pot. Deglaze-” She took hold of the white wine bottle, tipping the loose cork off with her thumb, and poured a splash into the pot. “Cover, cover-“ the pot lid came down, muffling the hiss- “then the broth. Chicken broth, usually, but vegetable sometimes. Some herbs, you know, not too much- coriander, leek, or cilantro, whatever’s fresh, and lemon. And now I’ll let it be. Simple. But a beautiful flavour.”

There were a few seconds of silence, after which Marianne started to suspect that Nicollier really had left in the middle of her monologue.

But no. Still there. And smiling, ever so slightly, her eyes darting between Marianne and the pot. Marianne felt the unexpected urge to smile back but restrained it. Christ, when had she gotten so polite?

“Anyway,” she said, and turned a little too hastily. “While you’re here you might as well start asking.”

“Asking?”

“You know. For the interview.”

"Oh," said Nicollier, managing in one word to express surprise, disbelief, and a not insignificant amount of doubt. Then she tacked on a "Really?" for good measure.

Immediately Marianne’s hackles shot up, ego bristling. “It’s more efficient this way,” she snapped. “And it’ll be on my terms. Okay?”

“What are your terms?”

“My what?”

“Your terms,” Nicollier prompted, eyebrows raised. “I assume you have some?”

Marianne did not. Marianne had none. Marianne was trying to think of some right now. What would make the process minimally invasive and painful? Well, nothing, as long as Camille and Antoine were there. But maybe there was a way around that.

“Here are your terms,” she decided, in a tone that hopefully brooked no disagreement. “Every question you ask, you have to answer.”

Nicollier’s eyebrows furrowed, head tipping to the side. _Ha!_ Hadn’t expected _that_ , had she? “Some of the questions will not be applicable,” she said.

Marianne shrugged and marched off. “Make them apply,” she called over her shoulder, and felt a tingle of satisfaction when she heard Nicollier scramble to catch up.

There were some cons to this otherwise very clever idea, Marianne discovered. Namely that the interview was now going to take twice as long. And also that it meant Nicollier was doggedly following her around all throughout prep. Though to be fair she was doing her best at staying out of the way. And also to be fair Marianne might have done a quick one-eighty once or twice just to see her stumble and backpedal herself into the counter. Or maybe more than once or twice. Who could say?

Okay, it had been five times. After that she had gotten too good at picking up on when Marianne was going to do it and it was no longer amusing. Especially when she stopped backing up and just stepped aside whenever Marianne got nose-to-nose with her.

Anyway. Her questions. 

She started off with: “What was your favourite subject in school?”

What?

“What,” Marianne said.

Expectantly she blinked at Marianne, pen twirling between her fingers. “Your favourite subject.”

“Chemistry?” she said, confused enough that it came out as a question. What kind of opening question was _that_?

Diligently Nicollier made a note of it. “Why?”

“Um,” was Marianne’s response. From the other side of the kitchen Antoine made a suspicious choked-off noise. Marianne put up her finger at him behind her back and thought for a moment.

“Well,” she said, rallying, “it’s just cooking broken down. And if you can understand food as a series of ingredients and reactions, then there’s- I mean, entropy and mistakes and all of that natural deviation, of course- but there’s a perfection. You know. An ideal. It’s an interesting idea.” Upon finishing she flushed, embarrassed, though she couldn’t quite say why. "What was yours?”

Thankfully Nicollier made no comments. “Ancient Greek. I liked the readings.”

“God,” Marianne muttered, making a neat cross in a briouat. _Of course_. “I bet _you_ were popular in school.”

“Oh, I wasn’t,” Nicollier said, without any particular inflection, and moved on before they could address _that._ “Where did you train?”

This at least was an answer Marianne had practised before. “The _Cordon Bleu_ for pastry and baking, then L’Ambroisie as a _commis_. Morocco for a few months with Antoine’s friends. Then Shanghai, and then Japan, where I trained in the _washoku_ traditional techniques for another two years. But my European training is mostly for desserts.”

“And you returned to Paris from Japan?”

“Mm-mm, not so fast. Your training.”

“Oxford,” Nicollier said, quietly. Her pen tapped against the corner of her mouth, a blur in Marianne’s peripheral vision. “For Human Sciences. Creative writing and journalism at different programmes. Master of wine. Why did you return from Japan?”

“I didn’t.”

“No?”

“Travelled. Worked.” Nicollier made a face- yes, she’d have to ask. “Have you ever been?”

“Been where?”

“To Japan.”

“Yes. Who would you list as the most influential chefs for your cooking?”

“Pascaud, Hecquet, Jin-Eldeau.” In the background the oven timer chirped. Camille, bumping the oven door shut with her hip, shot Marianne a wink when she looked over. “And your influential critics? Not that there are any.”

Nicollier smiled, though it hadn’t been a joke. “Well. Jonathan Gold, I suppose.”

“Really?” Jonathan Gold. American. Poetic, stout, quick. David knew him from his time at Elenos, and, being David, had nothing but glowing things to say. Good man, Marianne thought. Unexpected from Nicollier. She mulled it over as she deposited the briouats in the oven.

“He had a wonderful clarity of vision,” Nicollier said, when she returned.

“Good critic,” Marianne agreed. “Can you put the- wildflower honey. Just behind you. Yes, there, thanks.”

She nodded and went back to her original position by Marianne’s station. “Briouats?”

“Mhm. Half-dried fig, almond-infused honey. Brushed with maple butter. Not to be too predictable.”

Nicollier hummed, looking just a touch confused. Which was exactly the way Marianne liked her.

Not that she- it was a-

Marianne shook her head to relieve it of renegade turns of phrase and poured the boysenberries into a pot. “What did _you_ do in Japan?" 

"I worked on a rice farm," Nicollier answered. Which was unexpected. So unexpected that Marianne paused stirring the boysenberries to frown at her.

“How long?"

"Four harvests.”

"You did?"

"Yes."

Huh. Probably one of those getaways for the super-rich to escape the daily struggles of tax avoidance. She didn't look like she'd ever been within ten feet of a farm implement. Though- did she? Broad shoulders, yes. Not absurdly muscular beneath those horrid polos but certainly not lanky, either. A little too vain. Taste too expensive. She had probably been on some sort of business side of things. Or publicity. Marianne imagined that unpleasant smiling face plastered on the 20kg sacks of rice and bit back a grin. That would be one way to sell them.

Nicollier, when Marianne bothered to glance over in her general direction, as she very rarely did, was giving her an odd look.

“What?”

“What are you thinking about?”

Marianne hesitated. Honesty was not always the best policy in these cases. “Rice publicity.”

“Rice publicity,” Nicollier said, dubiously.

“That’s the truth,” Marianne said. “Take it or leave it. What are _you_ thinking about?”

“How eccentric some people are.”

“Oh, God, me too,” Camille chimed in, passing by with a tray of kumara. 

Luckily for the both of them, Mathilde came swooping in. Birds chirped. Angels sang. Light flooded in. A spoon was offered bearing elixir just-cooled from the pot, and feedback requested, a touch unnecessarily considering it was perfect. Calmed and steadied Marianne returned to the quasi-interview a new woman.

“Have there been any formative ingredients that particularly shaped your style of cooking today?” was the next question.

“Yes,” Marianne said, and gleefully did not elaborate.

After a moment, when it became clear that there was nothing to follow, Nicollier huffed. “And would you mind telling me what they are?”

Annoyance. That was something new. Promising, too. “Ginger. Pomelo. Most caramels, maple, sweet sticky rice. A lot of fermented things. Acid, kumquats. I like the basics, the easily sourced ingredients. And yours? As a critic, I mean. What do you like?”

“That’s a trade secret,” Nicollier said, and had the audacity to wink.

To wink!

At Marianne! A wink! In her kitchen!

Nevermind that it was completely out of character and left Marianne so flabbergasted that she nearly burned the jam. Nevermind that winking was a ridiculous thing to do. Nevermind that it was a bullshit answer regardless of the facial movement attached to it. What mattered really was that it was the most- well not the _most_ but up there- unprofessional thing that Marianne had ever- ever, in her career- 

“Oh, exquisite,” Antoine interrupted briskly, nudging Marianne over with his hip. “Marianne, this smells like heaven. What’s in it? Which fruit? Blackberries? I brought you some veal that you’ve got to try, the supplier’s fucked.”

“Boysenberry,” Marianne managed, and with a slowmoving shocked hand took the fork from him. Only the taste of almost-rancid meat brought her back to reality. “Jesus. How many days old is that?”

“Bad, eh? Four at least. Nicollier? Want to try?”

Nicollier eyed the lump of meat with some distaste. “No, thank you. As a matter of fact I have an appointment to make soon.” 

“Oh, boo,” Antoine said, undeterred. “David! David, I have something you’ve _got_ to try.”

Once he had lolloped off Nicollier turned to Marianne, and said, “Thank you very much for your time.”

“Uh-huh,” Marianne said, strangely unable to meet her gaze.

“I will be here for the wine pairing.”

“Okay.”

“Goodbye.”

“Goodbye.”

Only when the door had closed behind her did Marianne let out a breath and turn to survey the kitchen. Ten minutes till service. Everything in order. Except for the grin on Antoine’s face and the leer on Camille’s it was as if nothing had ever happened. Marianne ignored both and carried on as usual.


End file.
